A finished ACC-260 Topic 8 keep or drop recommendation example, separating a department's own costs from allocated ones and telling a store manager, in dollars, what closing it would really do. Searches like "acc 260 topic 8 assignment example", "acc260 topic 8 sample" and "acc-260 topic 8 example" land here.
What a finished ACC-260 Topic 8 keep or drop recommendation looks like
The finished recommendation opens with its answer: keep the department. The supporting schedule rebuilds the department's report in three layers using illustrative figures. Sales of $150,000 less $105,000 of variable cost leave $45,000 of contribution margin; subtracting $30,000 of fixed costs that belong only to the department, its seasonal staff and fixture lease, leaves a segment margin of $15,000. The $25,000 of store rent, general advertising and the manager's own salary allocated below that line is what produces the reported loss, and none of it leaves with the department. The memo then shows the store's income with and without the garden department, side by side, so the manager sees the $15,000 difference directly. A closing paragraph takes up the objection the manager is likely to raise and names what evidence would change the advice.
How an ACC-260 Topic 8 example is structured
The recommendation is written to be read by the person deciding, and it is ordered accordingly. It opens with the advice and its dollar consequence in the first two sentences. A second part reproduces the department report the manager has been looking at, loss included, so the memo starts from the manager's own evidence. A third part rebuilds that report with contribution margin, traceable fixed costs and segment margin as separate lines. A fourth part lists each allocated cost and states why it would remain if the department closed, with the rent and the general advertising handled individually. A fifth part presents the whole store's income under both options. A sixth part covers what the numbers omit, including the tool sales that garden customers bring with them. The memo ends by answering the manager's strongest objection in plain language.
Advice in the first sentence
The manager learns to keep the department, and what closing it would cost the store, before reading any schedule or explanation of method.
The manager's own report reproduced
Starting from the report that shows the $10,000 loss acknowledges why the question was asked and lets the memo correct it line by line.
Segment margin as its own line
Contribution margin less the department's traceable fixed costs is shown separately, since that figure is exactly what the store loses if the department goes.
Allocated costs followed after closure
Rent, general advertising and the manager's salary are each traced to where they land once the department is gone, which is on the remaining departments.
Both versions of the whole store
Total store income with and without the department is set side by side, making the $15,000 difference visible without any further arithmetic.
The strongest objection answered
The memo anticipates the manager's concern that a losing department drags the store down and answers it with the figures rather than with reassurance.
Where marks go in ACC-260 Topic 8
Recommending the closure because the department report shows a loss is the classic mistake at this point, and marks disappear with it. The allocated costs producing that loss stay with the store, so the recommendation would lower profit while claiming to raise it. Papers that correctly remove allocated costs but also remove the department's traceable salaries overstate the benefit of keeping it. Showing only the department's figures, never the whole store under both options, leaves the manager to do the final comparison alone. Memos written to an instructor rather than to the manager open with definitions of segment margin and bury the advice in the fourth paragraph. Ignoring what garden customers buy elsewhere in the store understates the cost of closing, and a strong version at least names that effect even without a figure for it.
Get an ACC-260 Topic 8 example written to your instructions
Send the ACC-260 Topic 8 instructions and the rubric from your classroom, with the segment report or scenario you were given. The custom example is drafted to those criteria, advising the named manager, separating traceable from allocated costs, showing the whole company under both options and answering the likely objection, back to you in 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free.
ACC-260 Topic 8 questions, answered
What makes a fixed cost traceable to a department?
It exists because the department exists and would end if the department closed. A department supervisor, a lease on equipment only that department uses or advertising that promotes only its products all qualify. Building rent divided by floor space does not, because the building stays. The test is what happens to the cost after the decision, not what the report calls it.
What if the segment margin were negative?
Then dropping the department would raise company profit, at least before other effects are counted, because it would not be covering even its own fixed costs. The memo should still check the complementary sales it supports and whether the freed space has a better use, since either one can reverse a result that looks decisive on the schedule alone.
How formal should the memo be?
As formal as a real manager would expect and no more. A heading, the advice, a compact schedule and a few paragraphs of reasoning usually suit an introductory course, unless the instructions call for APA style or a report format. Write every sentence for the person who will act, and keep the course terminology where it helps that person follow the figures.