Problem NO: 7

            Sustainability and job costing in a service sector Green and Greener Co., a law firm specialising in environmental litigation, had the fo

            Sustainability and job costing in a service sector

Green and Greener Co., a law firm specialising in environmental litigation, had the following costs last year:

 

 

 

The following costs were included in overhead:

 

 

 

 

The entity recently improved its ability to document and trace costs to individual cases. Revised bookkeeping procedures now allow it to trace fringe benefit costs for direct professional labour, paralegal costs, telephone charges, computer time, and photocopying costs to each case individually. The managing partner needs to decide whether more costs than just direct professional labour should be traced directly to jobs to allow the entity to better justify billings to clients.

During the last year, more costs were traced to client engagements. Two of the case records showed the following:

 

 

 

 

Three methods are being considered for allocating overhead this year:

·           Method 1: Allocate overhead based on direct professional labour cost. Calculate the allocation rate using last year’s direct professional labour costs of $15 million and overhead costs of $21 million.

·           Method 2: Allocate overhead based on direct professional labour cost. Calculate the allocation rate using last year’s direct professional labour costs of $15 million and overhead costs of $10 million ($21 million less $11 million in direct costs that are traced this year).

·           Method 3: Allocate the $10 million overhead based on total direct costs. Calculate the allocation rate using last year’s direct costs (professional labour of $15 million plus other direct costs of $11 million).

 

Required

(a)     Calculate the overhead allocation rate for method 1.

(b)     Calculate the overhead allocation rate for method 2.

(c)     Calculate the overhead allocation rate for method 3.

(d)     Using each of the three rates calculated in parts (a), (b) and (c), calculate the total costs of cases 875 and 876.

(e)     Explain why the total costs allocated to cases 875 and 876 are not the same under the three methods.

(f)      Explain why method 1 would be inappropriate.

(g)     Would method 2 or method 3 be better? Explain.

(h)     Explain how professional service firms, like law firms might engage in sustainability practices.

(LO1 and 4)

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