Consulting, law,
and public accounting firms use job costing to measure the costs of
serving each client. Motion pictures, printing, and other
industries where unique jobs are produced use job costing. Examples include home builders who design specific houses for each customer and accumulate the costs separately for each job, and caterers who accumulate the costs of each banquet separately. Consulting, law, and public accounting firms use job costing to measure the costs of serving each client.
- Indirect labor records are also maintained through time tickets, although such work is not directly traceable to a specific job.
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- In prolonged production operations, there may be a considerable amount of investment in work in process.
- For example, in October, the company ABC which is a manufacturing company incurs a total labor cost of $100,000 which includes the $80,000 of direct labor and the $20,000 of indirect labor during the period.
- Actual costs are difficult to trace to individual units of production, unless job costing is being used.
After the production is completed, the company can make the journal entry to move the cost from the working in process to the finished goods inventory account. For example, Job 105 had revenue of USD
9,000 and costs of USD 5,500.Third, managers would compare actual
overhead on the left side of the Overhead account, with the
overhead applied to jobs on the right side. If the actual overhead
exceeds the applied overhead, they may wish to learn why the actual
overhead is so high.
In the same period, it also incurs the direct labor cost of $25,000 and the indirect labor cost of $2,000. In accounting, the work in process journal entry starts when the manufacturing company starts the production. Likewise, in the job order costing, the cost of direct labor and direct raw materials will be assigned to the work in process when they are determined.
Assume Creative Printers is a company run by a
group of students who use desktop publishing to produce specialty
books and instruction manuals. Creative Printers keeps track of the time and materials (mostly
paper) used on each job. The total job cost of Job 106 is $27,950 for the total work done on the job, including costs in beginning Work in Process Inventory on July 1 and costs added during July. This entry records the completion of Job 106 by moving the total cost FROM work in process inventory TO finished goods inventory. Assume Creative Printers is a company run by a group of students who use desktop publishing to produce specialty books and instruction manuals.
Sometimes
the company learns that certain jobs are too costly considering the
prices they can charge. For example, Creative Printers recently
learned that cookbooks were not profitable. On the other hand,
printing instruction manuals was quite profitable, so the company
has focused more on the instruction manual market.
In job order costing, the manufacturing overhead is the cost that relates to the whole production operation but cannot be charged directly to the specific jobs. Likewise, the journal entry for manufacturing overhead starts when the company assigns all the https://personal-accounting.org/ indirect production costs to the overhead first before transferring to the work in process of the specific job. Notice, Job 105 has been moved from Finished
Goods Inventory since it was sold and is now reported as an expense
called Cost of Goods Sold.
Motion pictures, printing, and other industries where unique jobs are produced use job costing. Manufacturing overhead includes indirect material, indirect labor, and other types of manufacturing overhead. It is difficult, if not impossible, to trace manufacturing overhead to a specific product, and yet, the total cost per unit needs to include overhead when recording the journal entry for labor, the work in process inventory account is in order to make management decisions. In addition to indirect raw material and indirect labor, the manufacturing overhead also includes other costs that indirectly contribute to the product such as depreciation, utilities, and insurance, etc. The company compares the cost of each job with
the revenue received to be sure the jobs are profitable.
Chapter 2: Job Order Cost System
Consequently, it pays to flush as much WIP into finished goods as possible prior to the end of the fiscal year. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo
are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written
consent of Rice University.
Journal entries for inventory transactions
The production department employees work on the sign and send it over to the finishing/assembly department when they have completed their portion of the job. Additional entries may be needed besides the ones noted here, depending upon the nature of a company’s production system and the goods being produced and sold. The importance of properly recording the production process is illustrated in this report on work in process inventory from InventoryOps.com. Of the total amount, the company needs to account for the payroll taxes of $15,000 while the rest of $85,000 will go to the wages payable. Auditors are more likely to engage in a close examination of the accounting records for work-in-process when the ending valuation in this area is quite high, which can result in increased audit fees.
Job
16 had 875 machine-hours so we would charge overhead of $1,750 (850
machine-hours x $2 per machine-hour). Job 17 had 4,050
machine-hours so overhead would be $8,100 (4,050 machine-hours x
$2). The journal entry to apply or assign overhead to the jobs
would be to move the cost FROM overhead TO work in process
inventory. For example, Job 105 had revenue of USD 9,000 and costs of USD 5,500.Third, managers would compare actual overhead on the left side of the Overhead account, with the overhead applied to jobs on the right side.
Work in Process Journal Entry
To illustrate a
job costing system, this section describes the transactions for the
month of July for Creative Printers. The company compares the cost of each job with the revenue received to be sure the jobs are profitable. Sometimes the company learns that certain jobs are too costly considering the prices they can charge. For example, Creative Printers recently learned that cookbooks were not profitable. On the other hand, printing instruction manuals was quite profitable, so the company has focused more on the instruction manual market. To illustrate a job costing system, this section describes the transactions for the month of July for Creative Printers.
5 Prepare Journal Entries for a Process Costing System
On the other hand, the indirect labor cost is the cost that cannot be traced to a single job or a single unit of product as such cost is usually related to the production as a whole. For example, the salary of the quality control and inspection personnel usually contributes to all units of goods in the production. Actual costs are difficult to trace to individual units of production, unless job costing is being used.
This is due to the labor cost account is a temporary account that will be cleared at the end of the period. Direct labor cost is the labor cost that the company can directly trace to a single job or unit of product that has been performed or produced during the period. For example, the wages of a team of workers that performs their tasks solely on the job A can be directly traced to job A. The company ABC expects to incur the manufacturing overhead cost of $100,000 with the 20,000 machine hours for a whole year. The total job cost
of Job 106 is $27,950 for the total work done on the job, including
costs in beginning Work in Process Inventory on July 1 and costs
added during July. This entry records the completion of Job 106 by
moving the total cost FROM work in process inventory TO finished
goods inventory.