Four business days after the close of every month, each plant submitted a report
showing budgeted and actual results. Once these reports were received, corporate management
reviewed the variances for those items where figures exceeded budgetary amounts, thus
requiring plant managers to explain only the areas in which budgeted targets had not been met.
The focus was on net sales, including price and mix changes, gross margin, and standard manufacturing costs.
The budgeted and actual information submitted is summarized in Exhibit 2.
Supplemental information was provided by supporting documents (see Exhibit 3). Both reports were consolidated for each division and for the entire company, and distributed the next day.
The fixed costs were examined to see if the plants had carried out their various
programs, if the programs had met budgeted costs, and if the results were in line with
expectations.