Chapter 10 Relevant Cost Concepts in Decision Making

1.       Objectives

1.1       Define relevant costs, opportunity costs, sunk costs, and out-of-pocket costs.
1.2       Explain the above costs in the context of decision making.
1.3       Consider the various business decisions in:
(a)        acceptance of special order;
(b)       add or drop a product line or segment;
(c)        make or buy decision; and
(d)       further processing decision.

 

2.       Identifying Relevant Costs

2.1	Relevant Costs
	Relevant costs are future cash flows arising as a direct consequence of a decision. (a)        Relevant costs are future costs. (b)       Relevant costs are cash flows. (c)        Relevant costs are incremental costs.

2.2       Machinery user costs

2.2.1    Once a machine has been bought its cost is a sunk cost. Depreciation is not a relevant cost, because it is not a cash flow. However, using machinery may involve some incremental costs. These costs might be referred to as user costs and they include hire charges and any fall in resale value of owned assets, through use.

2.3       Labour

2.3.1    Often the labour force will be paid irrespective of the decision made and the costs are therefore not incremental. Take care, however, if the labour force could be put to an alternative use, in which case the relevant costs are the variable costs of the labour and associated variable overheads plus the contribution forgone from not being able to put it to its alternative use.

2.4       Materials

2.4.1    The relevant cost of raw materials is generally their current replacement cost, unless the materials have already been purchased and would not be replaced once used.
2.4.2    If materials have already been purchased but will not be replaced, then the relevant cost of using them is either (a) their current resale value or (b) the value they would obtain if they were put to an alternative use, if this is greater than their current resale value.
2.4.3    The higher of (a) or (b) is then the opportunity cost of the materials. If the materials have no resale value and no other possible use, then the relevant cost of using them for the opportunity under consideration would be nil.
2.4.4    The flowchart below shows how the relevant costs of materials can be identified, provided that the materials are not in short supply, and so have no internal opportunity cost.

2.5       Opportunity costs

2.5.1	Opportunity Costs
	Opportunity cost is the benefit sacrificed by choosing one opportunity rather than the next best alternative. You will often encounter opportunity costs when there are several possible uses for a scarce resource.

2.6       Sunk costs

2.6.1	Sunk Costs
	Sunk costs are the cost of resources which have already acquired where the total will be unaffected by the choice between various alternatives and are usually created by the past decision.

2.6.2

Example 1

Suppose that a company is wondering whether to sell a new product as part of its summer season range. It has spent $10,000 on market research, which has shown that if the product is sold for $10 per unit (variable costs of sale = $8 per unit), the company will sell 4,000 units. The money spent on market research is a sunk cost and is irrelevant to the product for a variable cost of $8 in order to sell 4,000 units at $10 each. Contribution and profit would increase by $8,000.

2.7       Out-of-pocket costs (現金支出成本)

2.7.1	Out-of-pocket costs
	They are defined as the actual cash outlays that exist currently. For example, salaries, advertising, other operating expenses. Depreciation would not be included as out-of-pocket as it has no current cash outlay.

3.      Acceptance of Special Order

3.1

Special Order

(a)       Special order decision is defined as when companies receive requests to supply products or services under special conditions and terms while they have to consider such non-routine decision. (b)       Management has to consider several factors before taking or leaving the terms of such orders. In deciding whether or not to confirm the order, management has to determine if there are sufficient resources or excess capacity to handle the special order and whether the relevant revenues are greater than the relevant costs.

3.2

Example 2

ABC Ltd manufactures special purpose gauges to customers’ specifications. The highly-skilled labour force is always working to full capacity and the budget for the next year is as follows:   $ $ Sales   40,000 Direct materials 4,000   Direct wages (3,200 hours @ $5) 16,000   Fixed overhead 10,000 30,000 Profit   10,000 An enquiry is received from XY Ltd for a gauge which would use $60 of direct materials and 40 labour hours. Required: (a)       What is the minimum price to quote to XY Ltd? (b)       Would the minimum price be different if spare capacity was available but materials were subject to a quota of $4,000 per year? Solution: (a)       The limiting factor is 3,200 hours and the budgeted contribution per hour is $20,000 ÷ 3,200 hours = $6.25 hour. Minimum price is therefore:   $ Materials 60 Wages (40 hours @ $5) 200   260 Add: Contribution (40 hours @ $6.25) 250 Contract price 510 At the above price the contract will maintain the budgeted contribution (check by calculating effect of devoting the whole 3,200 hours to XY Ltd). Note, however, that the budget probably represents a mixture of orders, some of which earn more than $6.25 per hour and some less. Acceptance of the XY order must displace other contracts, so the contribution rate of contracts displaced should be checked. (b)       If the limiting factor is materials, budgeted contribution per $ of materials is $20,000 ÷ 4,000 = $5. Minimum price is therefore:   $ Materials and wages (as above) 260 Contribution ($60 x 5) 300 Contract price 560 Because materials are scarce, odd-jobs must aim to earn the maximum profit from its limited supply.

4.      Add or Drop a Product Line or Segment

4.1

Add or Drop

Part of a business may appear to be unprofitable. The segment may, for example, be a product, a department or a channel of distribution. In evaluating closure the cost accountant should identify: (a)       loss of contribution from the segment; (b)       savings in specific fixed costs from closure; (c)       penalties, e.g. redundancy, compensation to customers; (d)       alternative use for resources released; (e)       other non-quantifiable effects. (i)        What impact will a shutdown decision have on employee morale? (ii)       What signal will the decision give to competitors? How will they react? (iii)      How will customers react? Will they lose confidence in the company’s products? (iv)      How will suppliers be affected? If one supplier suffers disproportionately there may be a loss of goodwill and damage to future relations.

4.2

Example 3

BB fashion store comprises three department – Men’s Wear, Ladies’ Wear and Unisex. The store budget is as follows:   Men’s Ladies’ Unisex Total   $ $ $ $ Sales 40,000 60,000 20,000 120,000           Direct cost of sales 20,000 36,000 15,000 71,000 Department costs 5,000 10,000 3,000 18,000 Apportioned store costs 5,000 5,000 5,000 15,000 Profit/(loss) 10,000 9,000 (3,000) 16,000 It is suggested that Unisex be closed to increase the size of Men’s and Ladies’ Wear. What information is relevant or required? Solution: Possible answers are as follows: (a)       Unisex earns $2,000 net contribution (store costs will be re-apportioned to Men’s/Ladies’). (b)       Possible increase in Men’s/Ladies’ sales volume. (c)       Will Unisex staff be dismissed or transferred to Men’s/Ladies’? (d)       Reorganization costs, e.g. repartitioning, stock disposal. (e)       Loss of custom because Unisex attracts certain types of customer who will not buy in Men’s/Ladies.

5.      Make or Buy Decisions

5.1	Make or Buy
	In a make or buy decision with no limiting factors, the relevant costs are the differential costs between the two options.

5.2

Example 4

CC Ltd makes four components, W, X, Y and Z for which costs in the forthcoming year are expected to be as follows.   W X Y Z Production (units) 1,000 2,000 4,000 3,000 Unit marginal costs $ $ $ $ Direct materials 4 5 2 4 Direct labour 8 9 4 6 Variable production overheads 2 3 1 2   14 17 7 12 Directly attributable fixed costs per annum and committed fixed costs:   $ Incurred as a direct consequence of making W 1,000 Incurred as a direct consequence of making X 5,000 Incurred as a direct consequence of making Y 6,000 Incurred as a direct consequence of making Z 8,000 Other fixed costs (committed) 30,000   50,000 A sub-contractor has offered to supply units of W, X, Y and Z for $12, $21, $10 and $14 respectively. Should CC Ltd make or buy the components? Solution: (a)       The relevant costs are the differential costs between making and buying, and they consist of differences in unit variable costs plus differences in directly attributable fixed costs. Subcontracting will result in some fixed cost savings.   W X Y Z   $ $ $ $ Unit variable cost of making 14 17 7 12 Unit variable cost of buying 12 21 10 14   (2) 4 3 2           Annual requirements (units)   1,000   2,000   4,000   3,000   $ $ $ $ Extra variable cost of buying (per annum)   (2,000)   8,000   12,000   6,000 Fixed costs saved by buying   (1,000)   (5,000)   (6,000)   (8,000) Extra total cost of buying   (3,000)   3,000   6,000   (2,000) (b)       The company would save $3,000 pa by sub-contracting component W (where the purchase cost would be less than the marginal cost per unit to make internally) and would save $2,000 pa by subcontracting component Z (because of the saving in fixed costs of $8,000). (c)       In this example, relevant costs are the variable costs of in-house manufacture, the variable costs of sub-contracted units, and the saving in fixed costs. (d)       Further considerations (i)        If components W and Z are sub-contracted, the company will have spare capacity. How should that spare capacity be profitably used? Are there hidden benefits to be obtained from sub-contracting? Would the company's workforce resent the loss of work to an outside sub-contractor, and might such a decision cause an industrial dispute? (ii)       Would the sub-contractor be reliable with delivery times, and would he supply components of the same quality as those manufactured internally? (iii)      Does the company wish to be flexible and maintain better control over operations by making everything itself? (iv)      Are the estimates of fixed cost savings reliable? In the case of Product W, buying is clearly cheaper than making in-house. In the case of product Z, the decision to buy rather than make would only be financially beneficial if it is feasible that the fixed cost savings of $8,000 will really be 'delivered' by management. All too often in practice, promised savings fail to materialise!

6.      Further Processing Decisions

6.1	Further Processing
	A joint product should be processed further past the split-off point if sales value minus post-separation (further processing) costs is greater than sales value at split-off point.

6.2

Example 5

The Poison Chemical Company produces two joint products, Alash and Pottum from the same process. Joint processing costs of $150,000 are incurred up to split-off point, when 100,000 units of Alash and 50,000 units of Pottum are produced. The selling prices at split-off point are $1.25 per unit for Alash and $2.00 per unit for Pottum. The units of Alash could be processed further to produce 60,000 units of a new chemical, Alashplus, but at an extra fixed cost of $20,000 and variable cost of 30c per unit of input. The selling price of Alashplus would be $3.25 per unit. Should the company sell Alash or Alashplus? Solution: The only relevant costs/incomes are those which compare selling Alash against selling Alashplus. Every other cost is irrelevant: they will be incurred regardless of what the decision is. It is $20,000 more profitable to convert Alash into Alashplus.

Examination Style Questions

Question 1 – Further Processing and Outsourcing
Sniff Co manufactures and sells its standard perfume by blending a secret formula of aromatic oils with diluted alcohol. The oils are produced by another company following a lengthy process and are very expensive. The standard perfume is highly branded and successfully sold at a price of $39.98 per 100 millilitres (ml).

Sniff Co is considering processing some of the perfume further by adding a hormone to appeal to members of the opposite sex. The hormone to be added will be different for the male and female perfumes. Adding hormones to perfumes is not universally accepted as a good idea as some people have health concerns. On the other hand, market research carried out suggests that a premium could be charged for perfume that can ‘promise’ the attraction of a suitor. The market research has cost $3,000.

Data has been prepared for the costs and revenues expected for the following month (a test month) assuming that a part of the company’s output will be further processed by adding the hormones.

The output selected for further processing is 1,000 litres, about a tenth of the company’s normal monthly output. Of this, 99% is made up of diluted alcohol which costs $20 per litre. The rest is a blend of aromatic oils costing $18,000 per litre. The labour required to produce 1,000 litres of the basic perfume before any further processing is 2,000 hours at a cost of $15 per hour.

Of the output selected for further processing, 200 litres (20%) will be for male customers and 2 litres of hormone costing $7,750 per litre will then be added. The remaining 800 litres (80%) will be for female customers and 8 litres of hormone will be added, costing $12,000 per litre. In both cases the adding of the hormone adds to the overall volume of the product as there is no resulting processing loss.

Sniff Co has sufficient existing machinery to carry out the test processing.

The new processes will be supervised by one of the more experienced supervisors currently employed by Sniff Co. His current annual salary is $35,000 and it is expected that he will spend 10% of his time working on the hormone adding process during the test month. This will be split evenly between the male and female versions of the product.

Extra labour will be required to further process the perfume, with an extra 500 hours for the male version and 700 extra hours for the female version of the hormone-added product. Labour is currently fully employed, making the standard product. New labour with the required skills will not be available at short notice.

Sniff Co allocates fixed overhead at the rate of $25 per labour hour to all products for the purposes of reporting profits.

The sales prices that could be achieved as a one-off monthly promotion are:
– Male version: $75.00 per 100 ml
– Female version: $59.50 per 100 ml

Required:

(a)     Outline the financial and other factors that Sniff Co should consider when making a further processing decision.
Note: no calculations are required.                                                                        (4 marks)
(b)     Evaluate whether Sniff Co should experiment with the hormone adding process using the data provided. Provide a separate assessment and conclusion for the male and the female versions of the product.                                                                                                                             (15 marks)
(c)     Calculate the selling price per 100 ml for the female version of the product that would ensure further processing would break even in the test month.                                                   (2 marks)
(d)     Sniff Co is considering outsourcing the production of the standard perfume. Outline the main factors it should consider before making such a decision.                                                   (4 marks)
(25 marks)
(ACCA F5 Performance Management December 2007 Q4)

Question 2 – Drop a Product, Pricing Strategies and Outsourcing
Stay Clean manufactures and sells a small range of kitchen equipment. Specifically the product range contains a dishwasher (DW), a washing machine (WM) and a tumble dryer (TD). The TD is of a rather old design and has for some time generated negative contribution. It is widely expected that in one year’s time the market for this design of TD will cease, as people switch to a washing machine that can also dry clothes after the washing cycle has completed.

Stay Clean is trying to decide whether or not to cease the production of TD now or in 12 months’ time when the new combined washing machine/drier will be ready. To help with this decision the following information has been provided:
1.       The normal selling prices, annual sales volumes and total variable costs for the three products are as follows:

	DW	WM	TD
Selling price	$200	$350	$80
Material cost per unit	$70	$100	$50
Labour cost per unit	$50	$80	$40
Contribution per unit	$80	$170	-$10
Annual sales	5,000 units	6,000 units	1,200 units

2.       It is thought that some of the customers that buy a TD also buy a DW and a WM. It is estimated that 5% of the sales of WM and DW will be lost if the TD ceases to be produced.
3.       All the direct labour force currently working on the TD will be made redundant immediately if TD is ceased now. This would cost $6,000 in redundancy payments. If Stay Clean waited for 12 months the existing labour force would be retained and retrained at a cost of $3,500 to enable them to produce the new washing/drying product. Recruitment and training costs of labour in 12 months’ time would be $1,200 in the event that redundancy takes place now.
4.       Stay Clean operates a just in time (JIT) policy and so all material cost would be saved on the TD for 12 months if TD production ceased now. Equally, the material costs relating to the lost sales on the WM and the DW would also be saved. However, the material supplier has a volume based discount scheme in place as follows:

 

 

Total annual expenditure ($)	Discount
0 – 600,000	0%
600,001 – 800,000	1%
800,001 – 900,000	2%
900,001 – 960,000	3%
960,001 and above	5%

Stay Clean uses this supplier for all its materials for all the products it manufactures. The figures given above in the cost per unit table for material cost per unit are net of any discount Stay Clean already qualifies for.
5.       The space in the factory currently used for the TD will be sublet for 12 months on a short-term lease contract if production of TD stops now. The income from that contract will be $12,000.
6.       The supervisor (currently classed as an overhead) supervises the production of all three products spending approximately 20% of his time on the TD production. He would continue to be fully employed if the TD ceases to be produced now.

Required:

(a)     Calculate whether or not it is worthwhile ceasing to produce the TD now rather than waiting 12 months (ignore any adjustment to allow for the time value of money).
(13 marks)
(b)     Explain two pricing strategies that could be used to improve the financial position of the business in the next 12 months assuming that the TD continues to be made in that period.         (4 marks)
(c)     Briefly describe three issues that Stay Clean should consider if it decides to outsource the manufacture of one of its future products.                                                                                      (3 marks)
(20 marks)
(ACCA F5 Performance Management December 2009 Q5)

Question 3 – Relevant Costs for a Pricing Decision
The Telephone Co (T Co) is a company specialising in the provision of telephone systems for commercial clients. There are two parts to the business:

• installing telephone systems in businesses, either first time installations or replacement installations;
• supporting the telephone systems with annually renewable maintenance contracts.

 

T Co has been approached by a potential customer, Push Co, who wants to install a telephone system in new offices it is opening. Whilst the job is not a particularly large one, T Co is hopeful of future business in the form of replacement systems and support contracts for Push Co. T Co is therefore keen to quote a competitive price for the job. The following information should be considered:

1.       One of the company’s salesmen has already been to visit Push Co, to give them a demonstration of the new system, together with a complimentary lunch, the costs of which totalled $400.
2.       The installation is expected to take one week to complete and would require three engineers, each of whom is paid a monthly salary of $4,000. The engineers have just had their annually renewable contract renewed with T Co. One of the three engineers has spare capacity to complete the work, but the other two would have to be moved from contract X in order to complete this one. Contract X generates a contribution of $5 per engineer hour. There are no other engineers available to continue with Contract X if these two engineers are taken off the job. It would mean that T Co would miss its contractual completion deadline on Contract X by one week. As a result, T Co would have to pay a one-off penalty of $500. Since there is no other work scheduled for their engineers in one week’s time, it will not be a problem for them to complete Contract X at this point.
3.       T Co’s technical advisor would also need to dedicate eight hours of his time to the job. He is working at full capacity, so he would have to work overtime in order to do this. He is paid an hourly rate of $40 and is paid for all overtime at a premium of 50% above his usual hourly rate.
4.       Two visits would need to be made by the site inspector to approve the completed work. He is an independent contractor who is not employed by T Co, and charges Push Co directly for the work. His cost is $200 for each visit made.
5.       T Co’s system trainer would need to spend one day at Push Co delivering training. He is paid a monthly salary of $1,500 but also receives commission of $125 for each day spent delivering training at a client’s site.
6.       120 telephone handsets would need to be supplied to Push Co. The current cost of these is $18·20 each, although T Co already has 80 handsets in inventory. These were bought at a price of $16·80 each. The handsets are the most popular model on the market and frequently requested by T Co’s customers.
7.       Push Co would also need a computerised control system called ‘Swipe 2’. The current market price of Swipe 2 is $10,800, although T Co has an older version of the system, ‘Swipe 1’, in inventory, which could be modified at a cost of $4,600. T Co paid $5,400 for Swipe 1 when it ordered it in error two months ago and has no other use for it. The current market price of Swipe 1 is $5,450, although if T Co tried to sell the one they have, it would be deemed to be ‘used’ and therefore only worth $3,000.
8.       1,000 metres of cable would be required to wire up the system. The cable is used frequently by T Co and it has 200 metres in inventory, which cost $1·20 per metre. The current market price for the cable is $1·30 per metre.
9.       You should assume that there are four weeks in each month and that the standard working week is 40 hours long.

Required:

(a)     Prepare a cost statement, using relevant costing principles, showing the minimum cost that T Co should charge for the contract. Make DETAILED notes showing how each cost has been arrived at and EXPLAINING why each of the costs above has been included or excluded from your cost statement.                                                                                                                             (14 marks)
(b)     Explain the relevant costing principles used in part (a) and explain the implications of the minimum price that has been calculated in relation to the final price agreed with Push Co.         (6 marks)
(20 marks)
(ACCA F5 Performance Management December 2011 Q1)

Question 4 – Further Processing of Joint Products
QR Limited operates a chemical process which produces four different products Q, R, S and T from the input of one raw material plus water. Budget information for the forthcoming financial year is as follows:

	$000
Raw materials cost	268
Initial processing cost	464

Product	Output in litres	Sales ($000)	Additional processing cost ($000)
Q	400,000	768	160
R	90,000	232	128
S	5,000	32	-
T	9,000	240	8

The company policy is to apportion the costs prior to the split-off point on a method based on net sales value.

Currently, the intention is to sell product S without further processing but to process the other three products after the split-off point. However, it has been proposed that an alternative strategy would be to sell all four products at the split-off point without further processing. If this were done the selling prices obtainable would be as follows:

	Per litre ($)
Q	1.28
R	1.60
S	6.40
T	20.00

Required:

(a)     to prepare budgeted profit statement showing the profit or loss for each product, and in total, if the current intention is proceeded with;                                                                                (10 marks)
(b)     to show the profit or loss by product, and in total, if the alternative strategy were to be adopted;    (6 marks)
(c)     to recommend what should be done and why, assuming that there is no more profitable alternative use for the plant.                                                                                                                (4 marks)
(Total 20 marks)