MelSwin is an accounting consultancy firm that provides its services to small, medium and large sized clients. The client size is determined by the number of employees as follows:
| Small sized clients | Medium sized clients | Large sized clients | |
| Number of employees | <50 | 50 to 100 | >100 |
MelSwin uses a traditional overhead cost driver of “data analysis hours” to estimate the cost of providing its services. Although MelSwin does not operate in a competitive environment, the Finance Manager, Grainne, advocates to use advance costing methods like the activity-based costing. Otto, the CEO, argues that the current method provides an acceptable cost estimation and given the high cost of implementing ABC, it will not beneficial. However, he agreed to hire a university graduate to examine the costs and benefits of implementing ABC. To do so, Mary, a recent Swinburne graduate, has been hired to establish an activity-based costing system. The activities and associated costs are estimated as follows:
| Activity | Activity cost | Activity driver | Quantity of activity driver |
| Visiting small sized clients | 45,000 | Number of small sized clients | 20 |
| Visiting medium sized clients | 120,000 | Number of medium sized clients | 50 |
| Visiting large sized clients | 150,000 | Number of large sized clients | 60 |
| Data collection | 200,000 | Number of hours | 10,000 |
| Data analysis | 800,000 | Number of hours | 20,000 |
| Report Writing | 50,000 | Number of words | 1,000,000 |
| Printing | 10,000 | Number of papers | 50,000 |
| Correcting errors | 10,000 | Number of errors | 50 |
| Total cost | 1,385,000 |
Mary has collected the following information about the average activity usage of three groups of clients:
| Activity | small sized client | medium sized client | large sized client |
| Data collection | 55 | 70 | 90 |
| Data analysis | 120 | 142 | 175 |
| Report Writing | 5500 | 7000 | 9000 |
| Printing | 200 | 320 | 500 |
| Correcting errors | 0.2 | 0.32 | 0.5 |
Mary has also collected the following information about a client, Hawthorn Cabinet, with 60 employees.
| Activity | Quantity |
| Data collection | 65 |
| Data analysis | 122 |
| Report Writing | 6,794 |
| Printing | 321 |
| Correcting errors | 0 |
Mary has been asked to prepare a report about the implementation of ABC and answer some relevant questions.
Part B
Mary has also become responsible to prepare cash budgets for the next six months. 15 % of the clients are small sized, 41% medium sized and the rest are large sized.
The patterns of billing receipts for each group of clients are presented as follows:
| Small sized clients | Medium sized clients | Large sized clients | |
| During month of service | 30% | 30% | 20% |
| During month following service | 70% | 40% | 40% |
| During second month following service | 30% | 40% |
Estimated billings for the last six months of this year are listed below.
| Month | Estimated billings |
| July | 140000 |
| August | 130000 |
| September | 145000 |
| October | 150000 |
| November | 180000 |
| December | 120000 |
Estimated cash outflows for the last three months of this year are listed below.
| Month | Estimated cash outflows |
| October | 100000 |
| November | 140000 |
| December | 85000 |
MelSwin expects to have a cash balance of $50,000 on 1 October and has a policy of maintaining a minimum cash balance of $40,000 at the end of each month.
Mary has been asked to prepare a cash budget report for the next six months including answering some relevant questions.
A.Assume that the direct cost of visiting Hawthorn Cabinet is $2100. Estimate the cost of providing services for this client using both the activity-based costing and the traditional method used by MelSwin?
B.Do you recommend using the activity-based costing at MelSwin? Briefly explain your reason.
C.Prepare a cash budget for the last quarter of the year that includes monthly budgeted cash receipts and payments
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