made by the firm's accountants for 26 packinghouses; for 15 houses

which had only total costs by items of expense, allocations were made
 3
 to the various containers with ratios developed for this purpose.

 There was thus a possibility of several different methods of cost

 allocation. However, three of the private auditing firms prepared

 22 of the statements. Methods used for distributing materials cost,

 general and administrative and selling expenses appeared to be rather

 uniform among accountants, but labor and other direct operating costs

 were allocated by various methods. In most of the packinghouses, a

 proportion of the labor for receiving and dumping and for grading was

 allocated to the fruit graded out for canneries (eliminations). A few

 of the houses also charged a small amount of some other labor to elimi-

 nated fruit. Any other direct operating expenses allocated to the

 eliminated fruit were at a lower per-box rate than to the packed fruit.

 In a number of the houses the eliminated fruit was charged principally

with administrative expense, the same as fruit going direct from grove

to cannery.

 The volume of citrus fruit handled by type of container and

kind of fruit is shown in Table 3. The number of the sample houses

using each container is also shown with the total cost of packing and

selling. Itemized costs for the principal containers used are treated

in subsequent tables. Packing and selling costs for those containers

handled in small volumes and by few houses are not considered represen-

tative as they may reflect unusual conditions and costs.

 The 41 houses prepared a total of 47 different packs of fruit

plus a mixed group of miscellaneous containers for each type of fruit.


 "A Method of Allocating Citrus Packinghouse Costs," Agricul-
tural Economics Mimeo Report No. 58-1, July 1957.