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Essay Instructions: Costing & Pricing Decisions ??" Write an essay on the practice of cost allocations (particularly joint costs, sunk costs, and opportunity costs) and pricing decisions (e.g., cost-plus pricing, target costing, and activity-based pricing) in corporations. Include in your discussion the major differences in those various approaches and their appropriateness in the context of the nature of costs, industry differences, competitiveness, etc. Also relate the implications for firm’s profitability (Text Material: Jiambalvo ??" Chapters 7 & 8).

Do not use abstracts, use full-text articles. Publications that may be relevant for the topics listed below include: Strategic Finance, The Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, CFO Magazine, Nonprofit World, Harvard Business Review, or other accounting and financial journals.

The paper should:

Be based on your reading and research relevant to the topic.

Be 7 - 10 double-spaced pages, plus appendices, exhibits, and references.

Include a one-page Executive Summary immediately following the title page that includes a statement of the major issue(s) and your conclusions and specific recommendations. The content of an Executive Summary is similar to an abstract.

Properly cite reference sources: these may include course material, information from magazines, journals, and online sources. All reference sources must have a publication date within the last three years. Students who wish to use an older source publication should contact the instructor with the request and reason.

I do not plan to use this paper as my own as I will revise it however I will submit it via turnitin.com so please list all of the resources so that I can review and verify. thank you

Essay Instructions: Cost Reallocation

The following link describes an organization's approach to allocation of costs. Some of the acronyms used in this report is explained in the introduction to the same report.

Required:

You are required to read the above article and to discuss the various issues of cost allocation in a 3 page paper using introduction and conclusion format addressing the issues below:

Describe the process of allocation of costs in this organization. Do you agree with the approach? Why or why not?.

Identify those situations when common costs are allocated.

Explain the impact of allocating common costs for internal decision making.

Explain the impact of not allocating common costs for internal decision making.

How is the decision making in this organization affected by the manner in which costs are allocated? Provide numerical support as needed.


There are faxes for this order.

Essay Instructions: Costs of the Firm Paper. Prepare a double-spaced typewritten paper that analyzes the following firm:

Dem and Greg?s pop-tarts company is doing well, especially with the introduction of Will?s Power Tarts. After some further experimentation in the test kitchen, they improved the taste of their pop-tarts. Then, Greg test-marketed the new product in the three major markets: Washington DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. His results revealed that people wanted tutti fruitti pop-tarts and Power Tarts. Sales would average 10,000, 5,000, and 2,000 bars a week in Washington DC, New York City, and Los Angeles, respectively. They hired you again for further analysis and you propose the following two alternatives:

I. Construct a single plant in to make the tutti fruitti pop-tarts and Power Tarts. The plant has the capacity to make 20,000 bars a week at a fixed cost of $5,000 per week and variable costs of 70 cents per bar.

II. Construct 3 plants (one in each market) with weekly capacities of 12,000, 6000, and 3,000 bars with weekly fixed costs of $4,000, $3000, and $2000 and weekly variable costs of 60 cents per bar (lower variable costs than alternative 1 because of less shipping costs).

1. What are the possible fixed costs and variable costs that may be associated with this firm?

2. Which alternative should they select? Why?

3. If demand should increase to production capacity, which alternative would be more feasible? Explain.

4. Suppose in alternative II that variable costs increases to 70 cents. Which alternative would they select? Why?



5. For alternative I suppose that the price of the pop-tarts and Power Tarts is $2.00. Would they make a profit or a loss? Apply the same price to alternative II and determine if there is a profit or a loss for each market.

Essay Instructions: Cost Volume Profit Analysis and Costing for the 21st Century

Read all the required readings in the background materials about Cost Volume Profit Analysis. Make sure you understand this method and the breakeven analysis which goes with these concepts.

These site have detailed slide presentations of cost-volume-profit analysis.
Cost-Volume-Profit-Analysis, Retrieved April 27, 2011 from:
http://www.slideshare.net/brianna1405/cost-volumeprofit-relationship
http://www.slideserve.com/presentation/24847/Cost-Volume-Profit-Analysis

Now carefully read the following article: Costing in new enterprise environment: A challenge for managerial accounting researchers and practitioners
Krishan M Gupta, A Gunasekaran. Managerial Auditing Journal. Bradford: 2005. Vol. 20, Iss. 4; p. 337 (17 pages).

LENGTH: 3-5 pages typed and double-spaced

The following items will be assessed in particular:

Based on the above article and your prior readings, do you agree with the notion of value costing for the 21st Century organizations. Why or Why Not?
Also based on the above article and other readings, why types of situations may be more appropriate for application of the some of the "tried and true" costing methods of the 20th Century? Are these industry or firm specific?
Is Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis still relevant in the 21st Century business organization? Support your answer with reasoned arguments and references as appropriate.

Please use online sources only