Variable Overhead Variance

( Actual expenditure - ( Hrs. worked x VOAR)

( £21500 - ( 21000hrs. x £1 ) = £500 (A)

Variable overhead efficiency variance

Overhead actually recovered - Overhead recovered at standard labour efficiency

(22000 x £1 - 21000x £1) = £1000 (F)

Fixed overhead expenditure variance

( Budgeted expenditure - Actual expenditure )

( £50000 - £52000 ) = £ 2000 (A)

Fixed overhead volume variance

( Budgeted output - Actual output ) x FOAR

( 20000hrs. - 22000hrs. ) x £2.50* = £5000 (F)

Fixed overhead absorption rate of £5 is equivalent to £2.50 per hour.

Sales margin price variance

( Standard selling price - Actual price ) x Sales volume

( £30 - £29 ) x 11000 = £11000 (A)

Sales margin quantity variance

( Actual sales - Budgeted sales ) x Standard margin

( 11000 units - 10000 units ) x £3 = £3000 (F)

Responsibility accounting

Responsibility Accounting describes the decentralisation of authority with performance of the decentralised units measured in terms of accounting results.

Responsibility Accounting recognises various decision centres throughout an organisation and trace costs, revenues, assets and liabilities to the individual managers who are responsible for making decisions about the costs in question.

It is a ‘ system of accounting that segregates revenues and costs into areas of personal responsibility in order to assess the performance attained by persons to whom authority has been assigned’.

Accounting reports are provided so that every manager is aware of all the items which are within his/her area of authority so that he is in a position to explain them.

There are three responsibility centres or units. A responsibility centre is’ a unit or function of an organisation headed by a manager having direct responsibility for its performance’.

Type of unit	Manager has control over	Performance Measurement
Cost centre	Controllable costs	Variance Analysis,
		Efficiency measures
Profit centre	Controllable costs	Profit
	Sales volume/prices
Investment centre	Controllable costs	Return on Investment
	Sales	Residual Income
	Investment in fixed/ WC assets	Other financial ratios

Cost centre: ‘a location function or item of equipment in respect of which costs may be ascertained and related to cost units for control purposes’.

Profit centre; ‘a segment of the business entity by which both revenues are received and expenditures are caused or controlled, such revenues and expenditure being used to evaluate segmental performance'’

The manager of a profit centre is made accountable and responsible for the profits achieved. The manager should be able to make decisions which may improve profitability. In organisations where power is centralised the individual manager may not have autonomy to make these decisions.

Investment centre: ‘ a profit centre in which inputs are measured interms of expenses and outputs are measured in terms of revenues and in which assets employed are measured – the excess of revenue over expenditure then being related to assets employed’.

The investment centre or divisional manager is allowed discretion about the amount of investment undertaken by the division so profit measurement alone is not sufficient to measure performance. Profit should be related to the capital employed in the division.

Divisional Management Performance

There are two main performance measures for divisions – Return on Capital Employed or Risidual Income.

ROCE or ROI is a relative statistic it looks at the relationship between profitability and capital employed.

Net Profit/ Net Investment in Assets

ROI can be used in two ways.

1. As a control technique to compare divisional performance within a company.

2. As a planning decision technique to decide to accept or reject projects

ROI can be looked at in two ways:

ROI = Net profit / Net investment in assets

OR

ROI = Net profit x Sales

---------------- ------------

Sales Net assets

ROI is not only a function of profitability but is also a result of asset utilisation

It is essential that when the ratio is used for comparison purposes that the same accounting rules and procedures are used to arrive at profit and capital employed.

Management action	Effect on ROI
Reduce level of costs	Improvement in
Increase profit mark up on sales	Profit element
Reduce net assets employed	Improvement in
Increase level of sales	Asset use element

Advantages

1. It is regarded as one of the prime performance measures

2. It deals with profit and net assets which are concepts well understood in business.

3. Useful for comparison of one business unit with another provided the same accounting rules are used.

Limitations

(1) Can lead to sub-optimal decision-making. A manager will be unwilling to accept projects and investment opportunities which do not produce a ROCE equal or better to the current ROCE being earned by that division. (See overhead)

(2) Care has to be exercised in terms of how the ROCE is calculated.

Net profit/ Capital employed

Net profit, Controllable contribution, Contribution.

Capital employed – net total assets, intangible assets?, leased or hired assets

4. There can be manipulation of the ratio. It can lead to an emphasis on short-termism in respect to the profit figure. The total asset figure can be manipulated- a reluctance to invest in new assets, lease rather than buy assets.

Limitations of ROI

The main drawback with ROI is it can lead to sub-optimal decision-making. If a divisional manager’s performance is to appraised by ROI he/she will be unwilling to accept projects which do not realise a return at least equal to the current ROI being earned by that division.

EG. A divisional manager has investment in assets standing at £4 million with a current return of £800,000 profit. A new investment opportunity presents itself. The investment would involve £1.6 million with an estimated £240,000. The manager’s performance is determined by ROI.

Would the manager accept the project?

	Current position	New project	New position
	£’000	£’000	£’000
Investment level	4,000	1.600	5,600
Income from investment	800	240	1,040
ROI	20%	15%	18.6%

The manager would be inclined to reject the project since it would dilute the ROI. Let’s suppose the company’s overall cost of capital is 10%. Any project which delivers a return in excess of 10% increases the wealth of the company. This is sub-optimal planning and decision-making.