Managerial Accounting 16th edition By Garrison, Solution Manual

Managerial Accounting 16th edition By Garrison, Solution Manual

Chapter 6
Variable Costing and Segment Reporting:
Tools for Management
Solutions to Questions
6-1

Absorption and variable costing differ in
how they handle fixed manufacturing overhead.
Under absorption costing, fixed manufacturing
overhead is treated as a product cost and hence
is an asset until products are sold. Under
variable costing, fixed manufacturing overhead
is treated as a period cost and is immediately
expensed on the income statement.
6-2

Selling and administrative expenses are
treated as period costs under both variable
costing and absorption costing.
6-3

Under absorption costing, fixed
manufacturing overhead costs are included in
product costs, along with direct materials, direct
labor, and variable manufacturing overhead. If
some of the units are not sold by the end of the
period, then they are carried into the next
period as inventory. When the units are finally
sold, the fixed manufacturing overhead cost that
has been carried over with the units is included
as part of that period’s cost of goods sold.
6-4

Absorption costing advocates argue that
absorption costing does a better job of matching
costs with revenues than variable costing. They
argue that all manufacturing costs must be
assigned to products to properly match the costs
of producing units of product with the revenues
from the units when they are sold. They believe
that no distinction should be made between
variable and fixed manufacturing costs for the
purposes of matching costs and revenues.
6-5

Advocates of variable costing argue that
fixed manufacturing costs are not really the cost
of any particular unit of product. If a unit is
made or not, the total fixed manufacturing costs
will be exactly the same. Therefore, how can
one say that these costs are part of the costs of
the products? These costs are incurred to have
the capacity to make products during a
particular period and should be charged against
that period as period costs according to the
matching principle.
6-6

If production and sales are equal, net
operating income should be the same under
absorption and variable costing. When
production equals sales, inventories do not
increase or decrease and therefore under
absorption costing fixed manufacturing overhead
cost cannot be deferred in inventory or released
from inventory.
6-7

If production exceeds sales, absorption
costing will usually show higher net operating
income than variable costing. When production
exceeds sales, inventories increase and under
absorption costing part of the fixed
manufacturing overhead cost of the current
period is deferred in inventory to the next
period. In contrast, all of the fixed
manufacturing overhead cost of the current
period is immediately expensed under variable
costing.
6-8

If fixed manufacturing overhead cost is
released from inventory, then inventory levels
must have decreased and therefore production
must have been less than sales.
6-9

Under absorption costing net operating
income can be increased by simply increasing
the level of production without any increase in
sales. If production exceeds sales, units of
product are added to inventory. These units
carry a portion of the current period’s fixed
manufacturing overhead costs into the inventory
account, reducing the current period’s reported
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2 Managerial Accounting, 16th Edition
expenses and causing net operating income to
increase.