Reference no: EM131201384

EXERCISE : Customer Profitability Analysis

Med Max buys surgical supplies from a variety of manufacturers and then resells and delivers these supplies to hundreds of hospitals. Med Max sets its prices for all hospitals by marking up its cost of goods sold to those hospitals by 5%. For example, if a hospital buys supplies from Med Max that had cost Med Max $100 to buy from manufacturers, Med Max would charge the hospital $105 to purchase these supplies.

For years, Med Max believed that the 5% markup covered its selling and administrative expenses and provided a reasonable profit. However, in the face of declining profits Med Max decided to implement an activity-based costing system to help improve its understanding of cus- tomer profitability. The company broke its selling and administrative expenses into five activities as shown below:

Activity Cost Pool                               Activity Measures                  Total Cost

Customer deliveries.                         Number of delveries                $ 400,000

Manual order processing.                 Number of manual orders         300,000

Electronic order processng.             Number of electronic orders     200,000

Line item pulling.                                Number of lie items picked       500,000

Other organization sustanig costs.         NA                                          600,000

Med Max gathered the data below for two of the many hospitals that it serves-City General and County General (both hospitals purchased a total quantity of medical supplies that ad cost Med Max $30,000 to buy from its manufacturers):

Number of deliveries	10	20
Number of manual orders	0	40
Number of electronic orders	10	0
Number of line items picked.	100	260

Required:

1. Compute the total revenue that Med Max would receive from City General and County General.

2. Compute the activity rate for each activity cost pool.

3. Compute the total activity costs that would be assigned to City General and County General.

4. Compute Med Max's customer margin for City General and County General. (Hint: Do not overlook the $30,000 cost of goods sold that Med Max incurred serving each hospital.)

5. Describe the purchasing behaviors that are likely to characterize Med Max's least profitable customers.