Below is a performance report that compares budgeted and actual profit in the sporting goods department of Maxwell's department store for the month of December.

A: evaluate the department in terms of its increases in sales and expenses. do you believe it would be useful to investigate either or both of the increases in expenses?
B: Consider storewide electricity cost. Would this cost be a controllable or a non-controllable cost for the manager of sporting goods? would it be useful to include a share of storewide electricity cost on the performance report for sportinggoods?

Maxwell's department store Sporting Goods Performance Report December 2008 Budget S600, 000 S675.000 S75,000 Actual Difference Sales Less S 75,000 Cost of merchandise S 300,000 S375,000 Salaries of sales staff S 60,000 S68,000 (S 8,000) Controllable profiS 240,000 S232,000 (S 8,000)