Variance analysis is then carried out between the flexed budget costs and actual costs.. A standard actual versus budget report will show: The favourable variance disguises the fact that
Trang 1Budgetary Control
In this chapter, we describe the budgetary control that takes place in organizations through the techniques of flexible budgets and variance analysis However, we caution against variance analysis in circumstances where this could conflict with more broadly based improvement strategies within the business The chapter also considers how cost control can be exercised in practice
What is budgetary control?
Budgetary control is concerned with ensuring that actual financial results are
in line with targets An important part of this feedback process (see Chapter 4) is
investigating variations between actual results and budgeted results and taking appropriate corrective action
Budgetary control provides a yardstick for comparison and isolates problems
by focusing on variances, which provide an early warning to managers Buckley and McKenna (1972) argued:
behaviour by setting agreed performance standards, the evaluation of results and feedback to management in anticipation of corrective action where necessary (p 137)
Budgetary control is typically exercised at the level of each responsibility centre Management reports show, for each line item, the budget expenditure, usually for both the current accounting period and the year to date The report will also show the actual income and expenditure and a variance
A typical actual versus budget financial report is shown in Table 15.1
There are two types of variance:
are lower than budget
are greater than budget
It is important to look both at the current period, which in the above example shows an underspend of £6,500 (budget of £80,000 less actual spending of £73,500),
Trang 2226 ACCOUNTING FOR MANAGERS
Table 15.1 Actual v budget financial report
Budget for
this period
Actual for this period
Budget for the year to date
Actual for the year to date
Variance
Materials 40,000 45,000 100,000 96,000 4,000 Fav Labour 21,000 19,000 30,000 32,000 2,000 Adv Energy 9,000 7,000 40,000 38,000 2,000 Fav Other costs 10,000 2,500 50,000 55,000 5,000 Adv Total 80,000 73,500 220,000 221,000 1,000 Adv
and the year to date, which shows an overspend of £1,000 The weakness of traditional management reports for budgetary control is that the business may not be comparing like with like For example, if the business volume is lower than budgeted, then it follows that any variable costs should (in total) be lower than budgeted Conversely, if business volume is higher than budget, variable costs should (in total) be higher than budget In many management reports, the distinction between variable and fixed costs (see Chapter 8) is not made and it becomes very difficult to compare costs incurred at one level of activity with budgeted costs at a different level of activity and to make judgements about managerial performance
Flexible budgeting
Flexible budgets provide a better basis for investigating variances than the original budget, because the volume of production may differ from that planned If the actual activity level is different to that budgeted, comparing revenue and/or costs
at different (actual and budget) levels of activity will produce meaningless figures
A flexible budget is a budget that is flexed, that is standard costs per unit are
applied to the actual level of business activity It makes little sense to compare the budgeted costs of producing (say) 40,000 units with the costs incurred in producing 35,000 units Variance analysis is then carried out between the flexed budget costs and actual costs
Flexible budgets take into account variations in the volume of activity Using the above example, costs are budgeted at £2 per unit for 40,000 units but actual costs are £2.10 for 35,000 units A standard actual versus budget report will show:
The favourable variance disguises the fact that fewer units were produced A flexible budget adjusts the original budget to the actual level of activity The
Trang 3variance under a flexed budget would then show:
This is a more meaningful comparison, because the manager responsible for cost control has spent more per unit and should not have this responsibility negated
by the effect of a reduced volume, which may have been outside that manager’s control Separately, the adverse effect of the volume variance – the difference between the original and flexed budgets – is shown as 5,000 units @ £2 or £10,000 This may be controllable by a different manager As can be seen by comparing the two styles of presentation, there is still a £6,500 favourable variance, but the flexed budget identifies the two separate components of this variance:
from 40,000 to 35,000 units at £2 each This is offset by
than the standard cost
Variance analysis
An important part of the feedback process (see Chapter 4) is variance analysis
Variance analysisinvolves comparing actual performance against plan, investi-gating the causes of the variance and taking corrective action to ensure that targets are achieved Variance analysis needs to be carried out for each responsibility centre, product/service and for each line item
The steps involved in variance analysis are:
1 Ascertain the budget and phasing (see Chapter 14) for each period
2 Report the actual spending
3 Determine the variance between budget and actual (and determine whether it
is either favourable or adverse)
4 Investigate why the variance occurred
5 Take corrective action
Not only adverse variances need to be investigated Favourable variances provide
a learning opportunity that can be repeated
The questions that need to be asked as part of variance analysis are:
Trang 4228 ACCOUNTING FOR MANAGERS
Only significant variations need to be investigated However, what is significant can be interpreted differently by different people Which is more significant, for example, a 5% variation on £10,000 (£500) or a 25% variation on £1,000 (£250)? The significance of the variation may be either an absolute amount or a percentage
A variance later in the year will be more difficult to correct, so variances should
be detected for corrective action as soon as they occur Similarly, a one-off variance requires a single corrective action, but a variance that will continue requires more drastic action A variance that can be understood can be corrected, but if the causes
of the variance are not understood or are outside the manager’s control, it may be difficult to correct and control in the future
Explanations need to be sought in relation to different types of variance:
The following case study provides an example of variance analysis
Variance analysis example: Wood’s Furniture Co.
Wood’s Furniture has produced a budget versus actual report, which is shown
in Table 15.2 The difference between budget and actual is an adverse variance of
£15,200 However, the firm’s accountant has produced a flexed budget to assist in carrying out a more meaningful variance analysis This is shown in Table 15.3 The flexed budget shows a favourable variance of £3,300 compared to the flexed budget In order to undertake a detailed variance analysis, we need some additional information, which the accountant has produced in Table 15.4
Sales variance
The sales variance is used to evaluate the performance of the sales team There are two sales variances for which the sales department is responsible:
standard price for the actual quantity sold
quantity at the standard margin (i.e the difference between the budget price and the standard variable costs), because it would be inappropriate to hold sales managers accountable for production efficiencies and inefficiencies The sales price variance is the difference between the flexed budget and the actual sales revenue, i.e £45,000 This is calculated in Table 15.5 The variance is favourable because the business has sold 9,000 units at an additional £5 each The sales quantity variance is the difference between the original budget profit
of £70,000 and the flexed budget profit of £50,500 – an unfavourable variance of
Trang 5Table 15.2 Budget v actual report
Budget Actual Variance Sales units 10,000 9,000
Selling price
Revenue 1,700,000 1,575,000 125,000
Variable costs
Materials
Labour
Skilled 900,000 838,750 61,250
Semi-skilled 225,000 195,000 30,000
Variable overhead 300,000 283,250 16,750
Total variable costs 1,505,000 1,390,200 114,800
Contribution 195,000 184,800 10,200
Fixed costs 125,000 130,000 −5,000
Net profit 70,000 54,800 15,200
Table 15.3 Flexible budget
Original budget
Flexed budget
Actual Variance
Sales units 10,000 9,000 9,000
Selling price
Revenue 1,700,000 1,530,000 1,575,000 −45,000 Variable costs
Materials
Plastic 30,000 27,000 26,600 400 Metal 20,000 18,000 21,000 −3,000
Labour
Skilled 900,000 810,000 838,750 −28,750 Semi-skilled 225,000 202,500 195,000 7,500 Variable overhead 300,000 270,000 283,250 −13,250 Total variable costs 1,505,000 1,354,500 1,391,200 −36,700 Contribution 195,000 175,500 183,800 −8,300 Fixed costs 125,000 125,000 130,000 −5,000 Net profit 70,000 50,500 53,800 −3,300
Trang 6Original budget
Flexed budget
Usage qty
Materials Plastic
Labour Skilled
Trang 7Table 15.5 Sales price variance Actual quantity 9,000
@ actual price £175 £1,575,000 Actual quantity 9,000
@ standard price £170 £1,530,000 Favourable price variance £45,000
Table 15.6 Sales quantity variance
Budget quantity 10,000
–Actual quantity 9,000 1,000
@ standard margin £19.50
Unfavourable quantity variance £19,500
£19,500 This is calculated in Table 15.6 The variance is unfavourable because 1,000 units budgeted have not been sold and the standard margin for each of those units was £19.50 (selling price of £170 less variable costs of £150.50), resulting in a lost contribution of £19,500
It is important to note that the sales mix can affect the quantity and price variances significantly Therefore, a sales variance analysis should reflect the budget and actual sales mix
We have now accounted for the variance between the original budget and the flexed budget (i.e due to volume of units sold) and between the revenue in the flexed budget and the actual (i.e due to the difference in selling price) We now have to look at the variances between the costs in the flexed budget and the actual costs incurred
Cost variances
Each cost variance – for materials, labour and overhead – can be split into two types, a price variance and a usage variance This is because each type of variance may be the responsibility of a different manager Price variances occur because the cost per unit of resources is higher or lower than the standard cost Usage variances occur because the actual quantity of labour or materials used is higher or lower than the routing or bill of materials (these concepts were covered in Chapter 9) The relationship between price and usage variances is shown in Figure 15.1 Materials variance
The total materials variance is £2,200 unfavourable, as shown in Table 15.7 However, we need to consider the price and usage variances for each type of material, because the reasons for the variance and the corrective action may be different for each
Trang 8232 ACCOUNTING FOR MANAGERS
Standard quantity Actual quantity Actual quantity
Standard price Standard price Actual price
Usage variance Price variance
Total variance
Figure 15.1 Price and usage variances
Table 15.7 Materials variance
Std cost
per unit
Original budget
Std cost per unit
Flexed budget
Usage qty
Act cost per unit
Actual Variance
2 @ £1.50 2 @ £1.50
Plastic 30,000 27,000 19,000 1.4 26,600 400 Metal 1 @ £2 20,000 1 @ £2 18,000 10,000 2.1 21,000 −3,000
4 @ £0.75 4 @ £0.75
Wood 30,000 27,000 38,000 0.7 26,600 400
Materials usage variance
Using the above formula we can calculate the usage variance for each of the three materials This is shown in Table 15.8 In each case, while holding the (standard) price constant, there has been a higher than expected usage of materials This is an efficiency variance, which may be the result of:
Materials price variance
Using the formula, the price variance for each of the three materials is shown in Table 15.9 While holding the (actual) quantity constant, we can see the effect of price fluctuations Both plastic and wood have been bought below the standard price, while metal has cost more than standard These variances may be the result of:
In total, the materials variance is £2,200 We can see that of the three materials, metal contributes the greatest variance – an adverse £3,000 (£2,000 usage and
Trang 9Table 15.8 Materials usage variance
Plastic Standard quantity 9,000 × 2
Standard price @ £1.50 27,000
Actual quantity 19,000
Standard price @ £1.50 28,500
Metal Standard quantity 9,000 × 1
Standard price @ £2.00 18,000
Actual quantity 10,000
Standard price @ £2.00 20,000
Wood Standard quantity 9,000 × 4
Standard price @ £0.75 27,000
Actual quantity 38,000
Standard price @ £0.75 28,500
Total usage variance – adverse −5,000
£1,000 price), which needs to be investigated as a matter of priority – while there may be a trade-off between the price and usage variances for plastic and wood,
as sometimes quality and price can conflict with each other The total materials variance is shown in Table 15.10
Similarly, we need to analyse the usage and price variances for both skilled and semi-skilled labour
Labour variance
The total labour variance is an unfavourable £21,250, as shown in Table 15.11 Similarly, we need to look at the usage variance (which is a productivity or efficiency measure) and the price variance (which is a wage rate variance) for each
of the two types of labour
Labour efficiency variance
Using the same formula, the efficiency variance for labour is shown in Table 15.12 The adverse variance is a result of 1,000 additional hours being worked for skilled labour and 1,000 hours less being worked by unskilled labour This may have been the result of:
Trang 10234 ACCOUNTING FOR MANAGERS
Table 15.9 Materials price variance
Plastic Actual quantity 19,000
Standard price @ £1.50 28,500
Actual quantity 19,000
Actual price @ £1.40 26,600
Metal Actual quantity 10,000
Standard price @ £2.00 20,000
Actual quantity 10,000
Actual price @ £2.10 21,000
Wood Actual quantity 38,000
Standard price @ £0.75 28,500
Actual quantity 38,000
Actual price @ £0.70 26,600
Total price variance – favourable 2,800
Table 15.10 Total materials variance Usage – adverse −5,000 Price – favourable 2,800 Total – adverse −2,200
−2,200
Labour rate variance
The labour rate variance is shown in Table 15.13 Skilled labour costs an additional 25p for each hour worked, while unskilled labour was paid the standard rate This may be the result of:
Trang 11Table 15.11 Labour variance
Std cost
per unit
Original budget
Std cost per unit
Flexed budget
Usage qty
Act cost per unit
Actual Variance
Skilled 6 @ £15 900,000 6 @ £15 810,000 55,000 £15.25 838,750 −28,750
Semi-skilled
3 @ £7.50 225,000 3 @ £7.50 202,500 26,000 £7.50 195,000 7,500
1,125,000 1,012,500 1,033,750 −21,250
Table 15.12 Labour efficiency variance
Skilled Standard quantity 9,000 × 6
Standard price @ £15.00 810,000
Standard price @ £15.00 825,000
Unskilled Standard quantity 9,000 × 3
Standard price @ £7.50 202,500
Standard price @ £7.50 195,000
Total efficiency variance – adverse −7,500
The total labour variance is an unfavourable £21,250 This is a combination of efficiency and rate variances, but it is all in relation to skilled labour The total labour variance is shown in Table 15.14
Variable production costs also need to be analysed
Variable overhead variance
The overhead variance is an adverse variation of £13,250, as shown in Table 15.15 There are two types of overhead variance, the efficiency variance and the spending variance
The overhead efficiency variance is £5,000 adverse, as shown in Table 15.16 The variance has occurred because an extra 1,000 hours have been worked The efficiency variance is typically related to production hours and often follows from variances in labour (see Chapter 11) The reason may be that as more hours have