Scenario

Your business has been open for a month, and you have prepared an income statement and completed a variance analysis on the data. Now you will meet with investors and a few other internal stakeholders to share your company’s progress over the past month and how it has performed with respect to your cost and budget projections. The investors would like to see the thought process behind your financial strategy and how your company has performed in its first month. They have therefore asked you to present a report that includes the costing and income data from your Project Workbook.

Directions

Submit a detailed report to your potential investors and other stakeholders to explain and defend your costing strategies and to share your business’s performance to date. Your report can be in the form of a PowerPoint presentation or a Word document (based on the templates provided in the What to Submit section). In either format, be sure to effectively communicate with your stakeholders by breaking down concepts and using investor-friendly language to build their trust and confidence. If you choose to do a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll need to include speaker notes for each slide.

1. Introduction: Provide a short overview of your company and the purpose of this report.
   1. Business Overview: Name your company and describe its business and your vision for its future.
   2. Purpose of the Report: Explain the purpose of the report and describe why the information is important.
   3. Methods and Approach: Explain the management accounting methods you used for generating the information that you are about to share in terms of your adherence to industry standards and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) code of ethics.
2. Financial Strategy: Review your original business plan and costing strategies.
   1. Costing System: Justify the use of job order costing for this business. Be sure to compare and contrast the various costing systems you learned about in this course as part of your defense.
   2. Selling Prices: Share and explain the selling prices you established for each of your products. Be sure to reference your cost-volume-profit analysis in your defense.
   3. Contribution Margin: Share and explain your contribution margin per unit. Be sure to reference your cost-volume-profit analysis in your defense.
   4. Target Profits: Identify your break-even points for achieving different target profits. Then explain the target profits you selected for each area of your business. Be sure to reference your cost-volume-profit analysis in your defense.
3. Financial Statements: Using the information in the Milestone Two Market Research Data Appendix, assess your financial performance to date.
   1. Statement of Cost of Goods Sold: Share the statement of cost of goods sold and logically interpret the business’s performance against the provided benchmarks.
   2. Income Statement: Share the income statement and logically interpret the business’s performance against the provided benchmarks.
   3. Variances: Illustrate all variances for the direct labor time and the materials price.
   4. Significance of Variances: Evaluate the significance of the variances in terms of the potential to impact future budgeting decisions and planning.

TEMPLATE FOR DOCUMENT

  

Introduction 

[Outline your company’s business and your vision for its future.]

[Introduce the company and its business. What is your vision for the future of the business? What do you hope to achieve? Where do you see the company in five years or ten?]

Purpose

[Explain the purpose of the report and what you hope to convey about the company and its financials.]

[What do you plan to communicate, and why should your investors pay attention? In other words, try to persuade your investors that the accounting information you are about to share is important.]

Methods and Approach

[Explain some management accounting methods you used to determine your costing strategy, evaluate your financial information, etc., and explain how these methods support the mission and vision of the company.]

[Briefly describe how your report and the data it represents adheres to industry standards and the AICPA code of ethics. In other words, why should your investors trust that you are delivering accurate financial data and that your decision-making process has been ethical?]

Financial Strategy

[In this section, review your original business plan and costing strategies. Remove this note before you submit your paper.]

Costing System

[Outline why the job order costing system works best for your business. Explain in detail the use of job order costing for this business. Be sure to compare and contrast the various costing systems you learned about in this course as part of your defense.]

Selling Prices

[List the selling price you chose for each product.]

[Explain and defend the selling prices you established for each product. Why did you choose these prices? Be sure to reference your cost-volume-profit analysis in your defense]

Contribution Margin

  

 

Milestone Two – Contribution Margin Analysis

 

      

  

COLLARS

LEASHES

HARNESSES

      

 

Sales Price per Unit

$ 20.00 

$ 22.00 

$  25.00 

 

Variable Cost per Unit

9.10 

12.10 

14.60 

      

 

Contribution Margin

$ 10.90 

$ 9.90 

$  10.40 

      

 

         

[Share and explain your contribution margin per unit. How did you arrive at these numbers? Be sure to reference your cost-volume-profit analysis in your defense.]

Target Profits

             

Milestone Two – Break-Even   Analysis

 

 

 

COLLARS

LEASHES

HARNESSES

 

 

Sales Price

$ 20.00 

$  22.00 

$ 25.00 

 

 

Fixed Costs

$ 4,028 

$ 4,028 

$ 4,202 

 

 

Contribution Margin

$ 10.90 

$  9.90 

$ 10.40 

 

 

Break-Even Units (round up)

370.00 

407.00 

405.00 

 

$ 369.57 

$ 406.90 

$  404.01 

 

 

 

Target Profit

$ 300.00 

$ 400.00 

$ 500.00 

 

 

Break-Even Units (round up)

397.00 

448.00   

453.00 

 

$ 397.06 

$ 447.31 

$ 452.08 

 

 

 

Target Profit

$ 500.00 

$ 600.00 

$  650.00 

 

 

Break-Even Units (round up)

416.00 

468.00 

467.00 

 

$ 415.44 

$ 467.51 

$ 466.51 

 

           

[Specify the break-even points you determined for achieving different target profit levels. Then, explain and defend the target profits you selected for each area of your business. Be sure to reference your cost-volume-profit analysis in your defense.]

Financial Statements

[This section is designed to have you assess your financial performance to date. Remove this note before you submit your paper.]

Statement of Cost of Goods Sold

  

 

Milestone Three – Statement of Cost of Goods Sold

 

    

    

 

Beginning Work in Process Inventory

0

 

Direct Materials:

 

Materials: Beginning

0

 

Add: Purchases for month of January

$ 20,000 

    

 

Materials available for use

20,000 

 

Deduct: Ending materials

4,000 

   

 

Materials Used 

$ 16,000 

 

    

 

Direct Labor

8,493 

 

Overhead

3,765 

    

 

Total Costs

$ 28,258 

    

 

Deduct: Ending Work in Process Inventory

0

    

 

Cost of Goods Sold

$ 28,258.33 

    

 

 

[Compare the actual cost of goods sold over the last month and evaluate the company’s performance against the budgeted benchmarks. Are the numbers close to what you expected? Interpret the performance and explain what happened.] 

Income Statement

  

 

Milestone Three – Income Statement

 

    

 

Revenue:

 

Collars

$ 400 

 

Leashes

440 

 

Harnesses

 500 

    

 

Total Revenue:

$ 1,340 

 

Cost of goods sold

28,258 

 

Gross profit

$ 29,598 

    

 

Expenses:

 

General and administrative salaries

$ 2,450 

 

Depreciation

165 

 

Rent

700 

 

Utilities and insurance

600 

 

Scissors, thread, and cording

$ 1,200.00 

 

Loan

550 

   

 

Total Expenses

$ 5,665.00 

    

 

Net Income/Loss

$ 23,933.00 

    

    

    

    

 

       

[Based on your income statement, logically interpret the business’s performance against the provided benchmarks. Did the company do as well as expected? Explain what happened.]

Variances

  

 

Milestone Three – Variance Analysis

 

 

 

Data for Variance Analysis:

 

Budgeted (Standard)
  Hours/Qty

Budgeted (Standard)
  Rate

Actual
  Hours/Qty

Actual
  Rate

 

 

Labor

160 

$ 16.00 

180 

$  16.50 

 

 

 

Materials

600 

$ 9.10 

660 

$ 10.00 

 

 

 

 

Variances for Collar Sales

 

Variance

Favorable/
  Unfavorable

 

Direct Labor Time Variance

 

(Actual Hours – Standard Hours) x   Standard Rate

$ 320.00 

Unfavorable

 

 

Direct   Labor   Rate Variance

 

(Actual Rate – Standard Rate) x   Actual Hours

$ 90.00 

Unfavorable

 

 

Direct   Materials Quantity/Efficiency Variance

 

(Actual Quantity – Standard   Quantity) x Standard Price

$ 546.00 

Unfavorable

 

 

Direct   Materials Price Variance

 

(Actual Price – Standard Price) x   Actual Quantity

$ 594.00 

Unfavorable

 

 

       

[Illustrate the variances observed between the planned and actual values for the direct labor time and the direct materials price for collars. What changed?]

Significance of Variances 

[Share a summary of your variance analysis. Were the variances favorable or unfavorable?]

[Evaluate the significance of the variances. Are the variances favorable or unfavorable? What does it mean? Explain whether and how your evaluation will affect your budgeting and planning decisions for the next month or quarter.]
 

References

[Include any references cited in your paper in full APA format. Don’t forget to include in-text citations as well.]