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The Management Accountant’s Profit Statement – Absorption Costing – ACCA (MA)

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      • Thanks John, bit confused, you say the actual F/O is 22,000 the amount actually absorbed is 22k , so 20k is the budgeted Fixed O/H? hence the over absorption resulting in increase in profit by 2k

      • No. What I say is that because we have absorbed 22,000 but the overheads we should be budgeting are only 20,000 we will have charged to high an amount. Therefore the profit will be 2,000 less that it should be and therefore we need to increase the profit by 2,000.

  2. I know this Q sounds like one of those you already answered. But I bear with me for a sec.
    I wrtite down the calculation a tad differently.
    Let’s assume with start with the direct costs.
    So our margin would be 35-25 = 10 per unit. No fixed production OH yet included.
    We get contribution margin
    10 * 11 000 = 110 000
    Sold during Jan | Went to the inventory
    9000 units | 2000 units
    $ 90 000 | $20 000
    Now to arrive at 74 000 of profit for Jan what we do is:
    Less:
    22 000 * 9/11 | 22000 * 2/11
    Equals
    72 000 | 16 000
    And plus over-absorption 2000
    74 000 | 16 000

    Hence my Q is:
    Why do we adjust for overabsorption in Jan only for the whole amount? Even though partly Fixed OH are included in the closing inventory. Wht don’t we charge over/under absorption prorata depending on the amount of inventory rolling to the next month?

    Image the situation when we only sold 200 units this month and the rest would go to the inventory. It means we would have been left with $1600 before adjustments but then we would boost our profit by $2000 adjustment to $3600. And the inventory would be valued 86400.

    Please, correct me at the point where my judjement is flawed

    • If we produced the budgeted amount each month then the problem would not exist. However from month to month, some months we will produce more and some months we will produce less. So we make the adjustment for the over or under absorption. In the long term it makes no difference – in the long term the total profit will stay the same whether we use absorption or marginal costing.

      • Hi John.
        Thank you for your reply.

        I get your point. However I was trying to stress another point. I totally understand that if we produced the budgeted amount, there would be no problem at all. And since our production levels will always diverge, I understand that we have to make adjustments. But my Q is why are we adjusting for over/under in one month for the whole amount even though we were left with some goods in the inventory and it seems these goods should bear some of the adjustment?
        I mean it would seem logical to distribute it this way: Jan for 9/11*2000 and Feb for 2/11 * 2000. Having decreased the cost of inventory, we would end up with profit adjusting up 9/11*2000 in Jan and 2/11*2000 in Feb.
        Does my Q make sense now?
        Many thanks in advance. Just struggling with this part. As I personally make adjustments for the companies I advise in exactly this way.

      • But then we would be valuing inventory at a different unit cost each month. Although certainly we can change the inventory value each month – in management accounting we can do whatever we find most useful – it is more common (and certainly always in the exam) to keep to the same standard cost for inventory throughout the year.
        Also when we come to variance analysis (later in the course) it makes checking whether we have paid too much or too little for materials etc purchased each month more meaningful.
        (For financial accounting we have to value the inventory at actual cost, but that is not relevant for management accounting.)

  3. Mr. Moffat , is there any way you could have the subtitles on the video lecture better written as they are wrong & very hard to refer back to when I miss certain words that you say during the lectures.

    if the software team could have a look at it , it would be of great help.

    Great lecture as always !

  4. Good afternoon Sir

    At the begining I would like to say that you are a wonderful person and you helped me a lot during preparing for FA.Thank you very much.

    I have a doubt about adjustment of over/under absorption. Why in January we don’t take into consideration absorption included in closing inventories? Accually when we calculate cost of sales we deduct absorption of overheads included in closing inventories and there would be 22000 minus 4000 = 18000 and underabsorption?

  5. Hello,
    In example 1 why have we taken actual fixed overhead at 20000 for calculating over absorption as in question it is mentioned that fixed production overhead are budgeted at 20000 instead of actual?

    • It is because we only look at the cost of goods that were sold, as we should do.

      By all means calculate the cost of the goods sold by taking the opening inventory plus the production less the closing inventory (and you can see it done this way in the printed answer in the lecture notes), but it takes longer 🙂

  7. Hi John,thanks for the lecture.
    I had a doubt regarding the way we charged fixed selling cost.
    We had first taken fixed selling cost into account while calculating fixed overhead per unit that’s how we reached the figure of $2 per unit(22000/11000)
    So why did we deduct it again from the final profit along with variable selling cost?
    Wouldn’t it be liking charging fixed selling cost of 2000 twice ?

  9. for example 2 since we are calculating the absorption rate for the actual hours, can we use the actual hrs (78000) and actual fixed OH (315000)to solve the OAR or will that change the answer?? and in other examples, is that applicable as well?

  10. sir, thank you so much. but I have a question. why should we use 27 dollar per unit to calculate the value of inventory? or why the fixed average overheads on the inventory is 2 dollar per unit?

    • We are not preparing financial accounts – we are preparing management accounts. They are usually prepared each month and we don’t want to change the value of inventory each month. We absorb the fixed overheads based on what we expect (on average) to happen, and value the inventory accordingly.

  12. Very confused how you came to the figure for February

    Sales:
    £35 x 11,500 = £402,500

    Production Cost:

    Material 9500 x 12 = 114,000
    Labour 9500 x8 = 76,000
    Var Prod. 9500 x5 = 47,500
    Fixed Prod. 9,500 x2 = 19,000

    Total = £256,500

    No remaining inventory. 0

    Budgeted profit. £146,000

    Under Absorb £1,000

    Still comes no where close to your figures. ???

    • The overheads absorbed is the production multiplied by the standard fixed overhead per unit.

      If this is more than the actual overheads then there is over-absorption. If this is less than the actual overheads then there is under-absorption.

  15. With regard to example 1 , why are we making an adjustment of £2,000 for the over absorption which relates to the production of 11,000 units when we are trying to calculate the profit figure for only 9,000 units.

    If 9,000 units are sold we have absorbed £18,000 of the fixed production cost. Therefore we have under absorbed by £2,000. Thanks

    • If they produce 11,000 units then the fixed overhead charged (absorbed) will be 11,000 x $2 = $22,000.

      (The amount absorbed depends on the production. Although only 9,000 units are sold, the cost of sales is the cost of the 11,000 produced less the cost of the closing inventory of 2,000 units.)

      Given that $22,000 has been absorbed, we have over-absorbed by $2,000.

  16. Sir, I would have loved if worked February the long way…I’m not seeing how you arrived at a profit of 92,000, but I’m assuming it has something to do with the opening inventory

  19. calvintai: The difference is that in Example 1 we are asked to prepare budget statements and therefore we are using the budgeted fixed overheads of 20,000. To get the over/under absorption we then compare that with the absorbed overheads (the actual production x the standard fixed overheads per unit).

    In Example 2 however, we are not prepared a budget. We know what the actual fixed overheads are (315,500) and we are comparing this with the absorbed overheads (again the actual hours x the standard fixed overheads per hour).

  20. Hi, I am so confused on the Over/Under Absorption. On example 2 Why you use the budgeted fixed production overhead $20,000 as Actual fixed overhead, but you used the $315,500 as the actual fixed overhead? Why not 320,000? It would be so thankful if someone can answer my question.

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