miami valley architects Inc.
provides a wide range of engineering and architectural consulting services through its three branch offices in Columbus , Cincinnati, and Dayton, Ohio. The company allocates resources and bonuses to the three branches based on the net income of the period. The results of the firm's performance for the year 2013 follows ($ in thousands)
miami valley
accumulates overhead items in one overhead pool and allocated it to the branches based on direct labor dollars. For 2013, this predetermined overhead rate was $1.859 for every direct labor dollar incurred by an office. The overhead pool includes rent, depreciation, and taxes, regardless of which office incurred the expense. Some branch managers complain that the overhead allocation method forces them to absorb a portion of the overhead incurred by the other offices.
Management is concerned with the 2013 operating results. During a review of overhead expenses, management noticed that many overhead item were clearly not correlated to the movement in direct labor dollar as previously assumed. Management decided that applying overhead based on activity-based casting and direct tracing wherever possible should provide a more accurate picture of the profitability of each branch.
An analysis of the overhead revealed that the following dollar foe rent, utilities, depreciation, and taxes could be traced directly to the office that incurred the ovehead ($ in thousands)
Activity pool and their corresponding cost drivers were determined from the accounting records and staff surveys as follow :
General administration
Project costing
Accounting payable/receiving
Accounting receivable
payroll/Mail sort and delivery
Personnel recruiting
Employee insurance processing
proposals
Sales meetings/Sales aids
Shipping
Ordering
Duplicating Cost
Blue printing
Direct labor cost
timesheet entries
Vendor invoices
Client invoices
Employees
new hires
insurance claims filed
propasals
Contracted sales
projects shipped
Purchase order
Copies duplicated
Blueprints