(Solution) - I just don t understand these financial statements at all excla -(2025 Original AI-Free Solution)

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I just don?t understand these financial statements at all! exclaimed Mr. Elmo Knapp. Mr. Knapp explained that he had turned over management of Racketeer, Inc., a division of American Recreation Equipment, Inc., to his son, Otto, the previous month. Racketeer, Inc., manufactures tennis rackets.
?I was really proud of Otto,? he beamed. ?He was showing us all the tricks he learned in business school, and if I do say so myself, I think he was doing a rather good job for us. For example, he put together this budget for Racketeer, which makes it very easy to see how much profit we?ll make at any sales volume (Exhibit 17.8). As best as I can figure it, in March we expected to have a volume of 8,000 units and a profit of $14,500 on our rackets. But we did much better than that! We sold 10,000 rackets, so we should have made almost $21,000 on them.?

a Standard costs are calculated for an estimated production volume of 8,000 units each month.
b Fixed costs. ?Another one of Otto?s innovations is this standard cost system,? said Mr. Knapp proudly. ?He sat down with our production people and came up with a standard production cost per unit (see Exhibit 17.9). He tells me this will let us know how well our production people are performing. Also, he claims it will cut down on our clerical work.?
Mr. Knapp continued, ?But one thing puzzles me. My calculations show that we should have earned profit of nearly $21,000 in March. However, our accountants came up with less than $19,000 in the monthly income statement (Exhibit 17.10). This bothers me a great deal. Now, I?m sure our accountants are doing their job properly. But still, it appears to me that they?re about $2,200 short.
?As you can probably guess,? Mr. Knapp concluded, ?we are one big happy family around here. I just wish I knew what those accountants were up to . . . coming in with a low net income like that.?
Required
Prepare a report for Mr. Elmo Knapp and Mr. Otto Knapp that reconciles the profit graph with the actual results for March (see Exhibit 17.11). Show the source of each variance from the original plan (8,000 rackets) in as much detail as you can and evaluate Racketeer?s performance in March. Recommend improvements in Racketeer?s profit planning and controlmethods.