Question 1 – Costing
Cakes2Go is a company which manufactures and sells three types of cakes in packets. One of them is called HoneyCake and contains three types of sweeteners: honey, sugar and syrup. The standard materials usage and cost for one unit of HoneyCake (one packet) is as follows:
£
Honey
20 grams at £0·02 per gram
0·40
Sugar
15 grams at £0.03 per gram
0·45
Syrup
10 grams at £0·025 per gram
0·25
–––––
1·10
–––––
In the three months ended 30 November 2012, Cakes2Go produced 101,000 units of HoneyCake using 2,200 kg of honey, 1,400 kg of sugar and 1,050 kg of syrup. Note: there are 1,000 grams in a kilogram (kg).
Cakes2Go has used activity-based costing to allocate its overheads for a number of years. One of its main overheads is machine set-up costs. In the three months ended 30 November 2012, the following information was available in relation to set-up costs
Budget
Total number of units produced
Total number of set ups
Total set-up costs
Actual
Total number of units produced
Total number of set ups
Total set-up costs
264,000
330
£52,800
320,000
360
£60,000
Required:
(a) Calculate the following variances for materials in HoneyCake:
(i) Total materials usage variance;
(ii) Total materials mix variance;
(iii) Total materials quantity (yield) variance.
(b) Calculate the following activity-based variances in relation to the set-up cost of the machines:
(i) The expenditure variance;
(ii) The efficiency variance.
(c) Briefly outline the steps involved in allocating overheads using activity based costing.
(50 marks)
Question 2 – Budgeting
Write an essay of 1000 words demonstrating your conceptual understanding of the following questions.
Is budgeting used primarily for scorekeeping, attention, directing or problem solving?
How do strategic planning, long range planning and budgeting differ?
Why is budgeted performance better than past performance as a basis for judging actual results?
What are the major benefits of budgeting?
Is budgeting an unnecessary burden for day to day problems? Explain your answer.
Why is the sales forecast the starting point for budgeting?
How do Spreadsheets aid the application of se