Wharton Associates is a recently formed law partnership. Wharton Associates operates at capacity and uses a cost-based approach to pricing (billing) each job. Wharton currently uses a simple costing system.

Currently it uses a simple costing system with a single direct-cost category (professional labor-hours) and a single indirect-cost pool (general support). Indirect costs are allocated to cases on the basis of professional labor-hours per case. The job files show the following:

	Steger Enterprises	Bluestone Inc.
Professional labor	3,000 hours	2,000 hours

Professional labor costs at Wharton Associates are $ 160 an hour. Indirect costs are allocated to cases at $ 100 an hour. Total indirect costs in the most recent period were $500,000.

Denise Peyton, the managing partner of Wharton Associates, decided to try and further refine the costing system.

Peyton asks her assistant to collect details on those costs included in the $500,000 indirect-cost pool that can be traced to each individual job. After analysis, Wharton is able to reclassify $300,000 of the $500,000 as direct costs:

Other Direct Costs	Steger Enterprises		Bluestone Inc.
Research support labor	$36,000		$77,000
Computer time	8,000		32,000
Travel and allowances	14,000		84,000
Telephones/faxes	5,000		24,000
Photocopying	6,000		14,000
Total	$69,000		$231,000

Peyton decides to calculate the costs of each job as if Wharton had used six direct cost-pools and a single indirect-cost pool. The single indirect-cost pool would have $200,000 of costs and would be allocated to each case using the professional labor-hours base.

Wharton has two classifications of professional staff: partners and associates. Peyton asks her assistant to examine the relative use of partners and associates on the recent Steger Enterprises and Bluestone Inc. jobs. The Steger Enterprises job used 1,000 partner-hours and 2,000 associate-hours. The Bluestone Inc. job used 1,500 partner-hours and 500 associate-hours. Therefore, totals of the two jobs together were 2,500 partner-hours and 2,500 associate-hours. Peyton decides to examine how using separate direct-cost rates for partners and associates and using separate indirect-cost pools for partners and associates would have affected the costs of the Steger Enterprises and Bluestone Inc. jobs. Indirect costs in each indirect-cost pool would be allocated on the basis of total hours of that category of professional labor. From the total indirect cost-pool of $200,000, $120,000 is attributable to the activities of partners and $80,000 is attributable to the activities of associates. The rates per category of professional labor are as follows:

Category of Professional Labor	Direct Cost per Hour	Indirect Cost per Hour
Partner	$200	$120,000	/	2,500 hours	=	$48
Associate	$120	$80,000	/	2,500 hours	=	$32

1.	Compute the costs of the Steger Enterprises and Bluestone Inc.'s jobs using Wharton further refined system, with multiple direct-cost categories and multiple indirect-cost pools.
2.	For what decisions might Wharton Associates find it more useful to use this job-costing approach rather than the approaches of a simple costing system or a refined costing system with multiple direct-cost categories and one indirect-cost pool?

Requirement 1. Compute the costs of the

Steger Enterprises and Bluestone Inc.'s cases using Wharton 's further refined system, with multiple direct-cost categories and multiple indirect-cost pools.

Begin by determining the formulas you will use to calculate the direct partner cost of the job and the direct associate cost of the job.

	x		=	Partner direct costs of job
	x		=	Associate direct costs of job

Now determine the formulas you will use to calculate the indirect costs for partners and the indirect costs for associates.

	x		=	Partner indirect costs of job
	x		=	Associate indirect costs of job

Now compute the total costs of each job using the multiple direct-cost categories and multiple indirect-cost pools. (Round your answers to the nearest whole dollar.)

	Steger	Bluestone
	Enterprises	Inc.
Direct costs:
Partner professional labor
Associate professional labor
Research support labor
Computer time
Travel and allowances
Telephones/faxes
Photocopying
Total direct costs
Indirect costs to be allocated:
Indirect costs for partners
Indirect costs for associates
Total indirect costs
Total costs of job		Requirement 2. For what decisions might Wharton Associates find it more useful to use this job-costing approach rather than the approaches of a simple costing system or a refined costing system with multiple direct-cost categories and one indirect-cost pool? Better client relationships since it will provide a better "road map" for clients to understand how costs are accumulated at Wharton Associates. Better decisions are made on pricing and product since it will reduce the likelihood of Wharton Associates losing cases on which it would have made money. Better employee work ethic on case projects because Wharton Associates will be able to staff employees in assignments they prefer to work on. Better managers on client budgets since Wharton Associates can now cut out the middle-man work product and efficiently do the work themselves. Better cost control based on individual cost areas of direct and indirect cost categories which allows Wharton Associates to effectively manage the categories.