Week 7 Cristin Madsen has recently been transferred to the Appliances Division of Solequin Corporation. Shortly after taking over here new position as divisional controller, she was asked to develop the division's predetermined overhead rate for the upcoming year. The accuracy of the rate is of some importance, since it is used throughout the year and any overapplied or underapplied overhead is closed out to Cost of Goods Sold only at the end of the year. Solequin Corporation uses direct labour hour in all of its divisions as the allocation base for manufacturing overhead. To compute the predetermined overhead rate, Cristin divided her estimate of the total manufacturing overhead for the coming year by the production manager's estimate of the total direct labour hours for the coming year. She took her computations to the divisions general manager for approval but was quite surprised when he suggested a modication in the base. Her conversation with the general manager of the Appliances Division went like this: Madsen: Here are my calculations for next year's predetermined overhead rate. If you approve, we can enter the rate into the computer on January 1 and be up and running in the j ob-order costing system right away this year. Jusic: Thanks for coming up with the calculatiOns so quickly, and they look just fine. There is, however, one slight modication I would like to see. Your estimate of the total direct labour hours for the year is 110,000 hours. How about cutting that to about 105,000 hours? ' r Madsen: I don't know if I can do that. The production manager says she will need about 1 10,000 direct labour hours to meet the sales projections for next year. Besides, there are going to be over 108,000 direct labour hours during the current year and sales are projected to be higher next year. Jusic: Cristin, I know all of that. I would still like to reduce the direct labour hours in the base to something like l05,000 hours. You probably don't know that I had an agreement with your predecessor as divisional controller to shave 5% or so off the estimated direct labour hours every year. That way, we kept a reserve that usually resulted in a big boost to net income at the end of the scal year in December. We called it our Christmas bonus. Corporate headquarters always seemed as pleased as punch that we could pull off such a miracle at the end of the year. This system has worked well for may years, and I don't want to change it now. Required: 1) Explain how shaving 5% off the estimated direct labour hours in the base for the predetermined overhead rate usually results in a big boost in net income at the end of the scal year? 2) Should Cristin Madsen go along with the general manager's request to reduce the direct labour hours in the predetermined overhead rate computation to 105,000 direct labour hours? Source: Brewer, P. 0, Garrison, R. H. 8: Noreen, E. W. (2005) Introduction to Managerial Accounting, 2'\"l ed. McGraw-I-Iill Irwin: New York, USA. 37