160. What are the differences between direct costs and indirect costs? Give an example of each.
Answer: Direct costs are costs that can be traced easily to the product manufactured or the service rendered. Examples of direct costs include direct materials and direct manufacturing labor used in a product. Indirect costs cannot be easily identified with individual products or services rendered, and are usually assigned using allocation formulas. In a plant that manufactures multiple products, examples of indirect costs include the plant supervisor’s salary and the cost of machines used to produce more than one type of product.
Difficulty: 2 Objective: 2
161. Describe a variable cost. Describe a fixed cost. Explain why the distinction between variable and fixed costs is important in cost accounting.
Answer: Total variable costs increase with increased production or sales volumes.
Fixed costs are not influenced by fluctuations in production or sales volumes.
Without the knowledge of cost behaviors, budgets and other forecasting tools will be inaccurate and unreliable. Understanding whether a cost behaves as a variable or a fixed cost is essential to estimating and planning for business success.
Difficulty: 2 Objective: 3
162. When should the overtime premium of direct manufacturing labor be considered an indirect manufacturing cost? A direct manufacturing cost?
Answer: The overtime premium of direct manufacturing labor should be considered an indirect manufacturing cost when it is attributable to the overall volume of work, and a direct manufacturing cost when a “rush job” is the sole source of the overtime.