production.
Conceptually, the overhead costs of a period belong to goods started but not
completed (work-in-process inventory), goods finished but not sold (finished goods
inventory), and goods finished and sold (cost of goods sold). The recommended way
to achieve this allocation is to prorate the overhead variance based on the ending
applied overhead balances in each account. Using applied overhead captures the original
cause-and-effect relationships used to assign overhead. Using another balance,
such as total manufacturing costs, may result in an unfair assignment of the additional
overhead. For example, two products identical on all dimensions except for
the cost of direct material inputs should receive the same overhead assignment. Yet,
if total manufacturing costs were used to allocate an overhead variance, then the
product with the more expensive direct materials would receive a higher overhead
assignment.