11.15: Add or Drop Decisions

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Learning Outcomes

Identify the data needed to support an add or drop decision

Adding, retaining or dropping a product or service can be a tough decision. Before we get back to Hupana Running Company and their situation with the water bottles, let’s take a look at Jen’s Sweaters:

Thumbnail for the embedded element "Part 3 - Relevant Costs for Decision Making - Drop or Retain"

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://pb.libretexts.org/afm-2/?p=476

Ok, so we talked in a previous module about Mary, the production manager. Let’s say her boss came to her and said “Mary, we are thinking about dropping the recovery sandal line we are currently producing. We would love you to sit down with us and look at the data to decide if this is a decision that makes good sense or not. When can we meet?”

So Mary sets up a time to meet with management and they show her the following income statement information.

Let’s further assume the following:

All of the salaries assigned to each product line, belong to that product line, and will go away if the product line goes away.
The advertising is an avoidable cost. If the product line is dropped, those ads won’t be needed any longer.
The utilities is the total for the entire company and is merely allocated by space. It won’t change if we drop a product line.
The depreciation is on the displays for the particular product line. We just got them, but they are custom made, so they won’t have any resale value if we drop the line.
The mortgage interest won’t change, we will just need to reallocate it if we drop the line.
The insurance is company wide, and will simply be reallocated.
The general administrative expenses are for accounting, order entry and general management. Currently, these costs are allocated based on sales dollars for each product line, but they won’t go away if a line is dropped.

So what now? How do we determine which costs will be avoided if we drop the recovery sandal line?

Fixed Expenses	Totals Assigned to Recovery Sandals	Not Avoidable	Avoidable
Salaries	$22,500		$22,500
Advertising	$5,000		$5,000
Utilities	$1,000	$1,000
Depreciation	$1,000	$1,000
Interest expense (mortgage)	$2,000	$2,000
Insurance	$500	$500
General administrative	$2,000	$2,000
Total fixed expenses	$34,000	$6,500
Net operating income (loss)	$18,500	$13,000	$27,500

So the recovery sandals were bringing $18,500 to our operating net income. The contribution margin for the sandals is $52,500, but some costs will be avoidable if we discontinue the line.

So Contribution margin that is lost if we discontinue the line: ($52,500)
Fixed Expenses that will be avoided if we discontinue the line: $27,500
Decrease in our overall net operating income: $25,000

So should we discontinue the line? It is still contributing $25,000 to our net operating income.

Mary suggests keeping the line, unless a more profitable line is located. Might they want to look at discontinuing the water bottle line? I think we talked about that in a previous module, didn’t we?

Practice Questions

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...sessments/9667

Add or Drop Decisions. Authored by: Freedom Learning Group. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

Part 3 - Relevant Costs for Decision Making - Drop or Retain. Authored by: Tony Bell. Located at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dedeck0HVXM&feature=youtu.be. License: All Rights Reserved