Question: Activity-based costing, batch-level variance analysis. The Saluki Company specializes in making fraternity and sorority T-shirts for the college market. Due to the high setup costs for each batch printed, Saluki holds the T-shirt requests until demand is approximately 100 shirts. At that point Saluki will schedule the setup and production of the shirts. For rush orders, Saluki will produce smaller batches for an additional charge of $175 per setup. Budgeted and actual costs for the production process for 2017 were as follows:
1. What is the static budget number of setups for 2017?
2. What is the flexible-budget number of setups for 2017?
3. What is the actual number of setups in 2017?
4. Assuming fixed setup overhead costs are allocated using setup-hours, what is the predetermined fixed setup overhead allocation rate?
5. Does Saluki's charge of $175 cover the budgeted direct variable cost of an order? The budgeted total cost?
6. For direct variable setup costs, compute the price and efficiency variances.
7. For fixed setup overhead costs, compute the spending and the production-volume variances.
8. What qualitative factors should Saluki consider before accepting or rejecting a special order?