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MAOver(Under) Absorption

Ttete16y ago
Can anyone answer the situation (ii)?

A company uses absorption costing with a predetermined hourly overhead absorption rate. The following situation have both occurred:

(i) Actual overhead expenditure exceeded planned expenditure: and
(ii) Actual hours worked were less than the planned hours

Which of the following statement is correct?

a) situation (i) would cause overhead to be over absorbed and situation (ii) would cause overhead to be under absorbed.
b) situation (i) would cause overhead to be under absorbed and situation (ii) would cause overhead to be over absorbed.
c) both situation would cause overhead to be over absorbed
d) both situation would cause overhead to be under absorbed


The correct answers is (D)

i understand the situation (i) but i don't know situation (ii).
Former userFormer user16y ago#1
for me, u should identify indle time
Former userFormer user16y ago#2
No Right Answer is Situation A..
1--Leads to over absorption and that it was the Situation..
2--If actual hours worked were below budgeted then by applying the predetermined rate which is based on a budget hour to this lower number will leads to UNDER absorption
John MoffatJohn MoffatTutor16y ago#3
The correct answer is D.

To explain, let me invent some numbers:

Planned/Budget: $20,000 and 10,000 hours

Actual: $22,000 and 8,000 hours

The absorption rate is always based on budget and so is 20,000/10000 = $2 per hour.

We then charge $2 per hour for every hour actually worked.

This will mean that we charge 8,000 x $2 = $16,000

This is less than the actual total of $22,000 (so we have under-charged / under-absorbed)

It is less for two reasons: firstly because the actual total was higher than budget total.
However, even if the actual total was correct at $20,000 we would still have underabsorbed because we only charged for the actual hours worked (8000) when we had budgeted on working 10000.

I hope that helps.
Eeddie24716y ago#4
hi,john is absolutely spot on,the answer is d
Ttete16y ago#5
Hi John, understand now. Thank you.:)
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