Soap Makers International

Several years ago, Ingrid Krause wanted some international expertise and applied for a transfer to her companys soap division, which is located south of Warsaw, Poland. The soap division manufactures hand soap for use in a large number of settings, from hospitals to luxury hotels. Ingrid was awarded the transfer to the soap division and was assigned to the accounting department. She is responsible for overseeing the costing and probability analysis of the various soaps and soap-making processes. During her tenure in the soap division, there were numerous changes in the number of soaps manufactured and the processes to make the different soaps. Consequently, Ingrids position required her to consider changes in the accounting processes to reflect the changes in the soap divisions business.

For several decades, the companys soap-making process required a large labour force that manufactured and packaged the soap mainly by hand. Local economic changes meant that the labour force that the factory required was not as available as it had been in the past. As a result, the division was experiencing slower processing time, and more snap being rejected during inspections because of quality concerns. To address the issues related to the lack of labour availability, the divisions management decided three years ago that automation was the way to go. Consequently, over the last three years, the soap making processes have changed with the implementation of automation.

The automation of the soap making processes have allowed for a much larger variety of soap and packing, a reduced direct labour force and direct labour costs, and a higher level of traceability of costs to the various soaps because of technological improvements. Soaps made for industrial applications require different ingredients, less time in processing, less time in finishing, and less time in and cheaper packaging than do soaps for the hotel industry. The costs of materials and packaging are directly traceable to the various types of soaps through new software that uses bar codes and counters to trace material costs to the various soaps directly.

Ingrid feels that the current costing system should be revisited. The cost driver for allocation of the overhead costs (such as supervisory salaries and plant utilities) have always been direct labour hours cost. However, given the decline in the use of labour due to automation, Ingrid is questioning its suitability as a basis of allocation. Ingrid would like to explore activity based costing to allocate overhead costs.

Ingrid has gathered cost data for two representative soaps: one sold to hospitals and one sold to hotels. Further, Ingrid has gathered data from the automated system on the amount of time each type of soap spends in the three manufacturing processes: processing, finishing, and packaging. The soap is produced in large batches, consequently, the data are adjusted to reflect the average cost per 100g of soap. The data for type of soap for one months production are in Exhibit 1.

EXHIBIT 1 COSTS FOR ONE MONTHS PRODUCTION OF SOAP

Cost Components	Total	Costs Per 100 g of soap
		Industrial Soap (Hospital)	Luxury Soap (Hotel)
Direct Materials	$4.000,000	$0.40	$0.80
Packaging	$2,000,000	$0.10	$0.60
Direct Labour	$750,000	$0.14	$0.15
Manufacturing	$5,000,000
Processing	$2,500,000
Finishing	$1,500,000
Packaging	$1,000,000

EXHIBIT 2 TIME REQUIRED FOR ONE MONTHS PRODUCTION OF SOAP

Time Components	Total	Time per 100 g of soap
		Industrial Soap (Hospital)	Luxury Soap (Hotel)
Processing	750,000 seconds	0.2 second	0.4 second
Finishing	300,000 seconds	0.03 second	0.4 second
Packaging	100,000 seconds	0.006 second	0.5 second

REQUIRED:

Do the cost allocation computations provide support for an ABC approach to costing?

Would you advise Ingrid to continue with her traditional costing approach or change to an ABC approach? Explain.