The CFO is particularly curious about activity-based costing, job costing & process costing. She is also wondering if they should be using actual or budgeted costs in their costing system & what the benefit is to either. The CFO is currently unsure what system is in use & unfortunately due to an untimely death of the predecessor controller, you are unable to interview him for advice. The CFO has indicated that she is very worried about under costing there products as they have numerous departments and want to make sure they are pricing everything appropriately.

Through research you determine the following about Midwest Industries

The typical job for Midwest is large in nature and customizable. Although there is a basic shell design for each bucket, customers choose different types of bottom (tapered or flat), bucket size & material (Light-weight, industrial strength, etc.). Midwest is willing to consider any modification in the design process

Costs are categorized as either direct or indirect/overhead or period within the specific manufacturing facility. There is an offsite head office, that you work at. The company uses FIFO for their direct materials.

The record keeping within the department is strong and the staff has indicated that if required they could track the overhead costs more specifically.

In the fall Midwest undertakes a significant budgeting process and budgets all major costs, including direct labour, direct materials & various individual overhead costs

A typical job for Midwest looks like this:

Job B115

Sales Price $68,000

Direct Manufacturing Labour $15,000

Direct Materials $24,000

Total Budgeted Manufacturing Overhead Costs $14,910,000

Direct Budgeted Manufacturing Machine Hours 21,000

Actual Machine Hours Job B115 30 hours

Budgeted Machine Hours Job B115 32 hours

REQUIRED:

• A memo for the CFO regarding costing at Midwest Industries.