Cornerstone 7.3 shows how and why to allocate support department costs to producing departments using the direct method.
1. Suppose there are two support departments, Power and Maintenance, and two producing departments, Grinding and Assembly, each with a bucket of directly traceable overhead cost.
2. Objective: Distribute all power and maintenance costs to Grinding and Assembly using the direct method.
3. Direct Method—allocate power and maintenance costs only to Grinding and Assembly.
4. After allocation—zero cost in Power and Maintenance; all overhead cost in Grinding and Assembly.