Variance analysis, non manufacturing setting

Stevie McQueen has run Lightning Car Detailing for the past 10 years. His static budget and actual results ‘or June 2011 are provided below. Stevie has one employee who has been with him for all ten years that he has been in business. He has not been as lucky with his second and third employees. Stevie is hiring new employees in those positions almost every second month. It usually takes 2 hours to detail a vehicle. It takes as long for the seasoned employee as for the new ones, as the former tends to put more into the job. Stevie pays his long-term employee $20 per hour and the other two employees $10 per hour Stevie pays all employees for 2 hours of work on each car, regardless of how long the work actually takes them. There were no wage increases in June.

1. Prepare a statement of the static budget variances that Stevie would be interested in.

2. Compute any flexible budget variances that you believe would be appropriate.

3. What information, in addition to that provided in the income statements, would you want Stevie to gather, if you wanted to improve operational efficiency?

4. How many cars, on average, did Stevie budget for each employee? How many cars did they actually detail?

5. What advice would you give Stevie about motivating his employees?

Lightning Car Detailing Actual and Budgeted Income Statements For the month ended June 30, 2011 Budget 200 $30,000 Actual Cars detailed 225 Revenue $39,375 Variable costs Costs of supplies 1,500 2,250 6,000 8,250 31,125 Labor 5,600 7,100 22,900 Total variable costs Contribution margin 9,500 $13,400 9,500 $21,625 Fixed costs Operating income