Stratford Corporation is a diversified company whose products are marketed both domestically and internationally. Its major product

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Stratford Corporation is a diversified company whose products are marketed both domestically and internationally. Its major product lines are pharmaceutical products, sports equipment, and household appliances. At a recent meeting, Stratford's board of directors had a lengthy discussion on ways to improve overall corporate profitability without new acquisitions. New acquisitions are problematic because the company already has a lot of debt. The board members decided that they needed additional financial information about individual corporate operations to target areas for improvement. Dave Murphy, Stratford's controller, has been asked to provide additional data to assist the board in its investigation.

Stratford is not a public company and, therefore, has not prepared complete income statements by product line. Dave has regularly prepared an income statement by product line through contribution margin. However, he now believes that income statements prepared through operating income along both product lines and geographic areas would provide the directors with the required insight into corporate operations. Dave has the following data available:

Stratford Corporation is a diversified company whose products are marketed

Dave had several discussions with the division managers from each product line and compiled this information:
• The division managers concluded that Dave should allocate fixed factory overhead on the basis of the ratio of the variable costs per product line or per geographic area to total variable costs.
• Each division manager agreed that a reasonable basis for the allocation of depreciation on plant and equipment would be the ratio of units produced per product line or per geographic area to the total number of units produced.
• There was little agreement on the allocation of administrative and selling expenses, so Dave decided to allocate only those expenses that were directly traceable to the SBU; that is, manufacturing staff salaries to product lines and sales staff salaries to geographic areas. He used these data for this allocation:

Contribution Margin
Contribution margin is an important element of cost volume profit analysis that managers carry out to assess the maximum number of units that are required to be at the breakeven point. Contribution margin is the profit before fixed cost and taxes...
Corporation
A Corporation is a legal form of business that is separate from its owner. In other words, a corporation is a business or organization formed by a group of people, and its right and liabilities separate from those of the individuals involved. It may...
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Related Book For  answer-question

Cost Management A Strategic Emphasis

ISBN: 978-0077733773

7th edition

Authors: Edward Blocher, David Stout, Paul Juras, Gary Cokins

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