Dr. Charles R. Hall
Every single day in the life of the greenhouse manager is filled with the monumental task of making decisions. Some of these decisions are general in nature. Is the operation profitable enough to ensure survivability for the next five or ten years or longer? Am I marketing a quality product at a price that is competitive with industry prices? Does my business have a reputation of being honest, fair, and considerate of the customer?
Other decisions tend to be more detailed in nature. What size plants should I grow? Should I invest in new machinery or technology? What price should I try to negotiate for this item? What product mix will yield the highest profit? Should I produce my own plugs, buy them from someone else, or use a conventional seeding system? How many plugs should I put in each pot? The primary responsibility of any greenhouse manager is to make decisions that will answer these types of questions and achieve the objectives of the firm. And, of course, maximizing profits is generally one of the most important objectives of any operation. But not only are managers faced with making decisions that potentially impact revenues and costs of the firm, they must implement solutions in a manner that is both efficient and effective.
Cost accounting or budgeting is a tool that may be used to help make these decisions. In general terms, cost accounting or budgeting can be defined as a plan to allocate resources among alternative uses. That includes labor, water, capital, and any other resources that may be scarce or limited. Budgets can also be used to provide a basis for planning labor needs and for financing -deciding when to borrow and how much. They also provide a plan for when to buy supplies and when to sell your products.
Cost accounting budgets are especially effective when a record system designed for managing is already in place. Records are especially important in that they provide feedback for evaluating performance and provide information for developing and refining budgets. Thus, the effectiveness of budgeting is a function of how good your record keeping system is. Tax records are the most common type of records kept by greenhouse managers. They provide a good picture of the costs and returns of your entire business from a tax accounting standpoint. However, since most producers grow numerous crops, tax records will not provide information on the costs and returns from any individual crop that you produce. Only through cost accounting can you allocate cost involved in operating your business to specific crops.
Though cost accounting and record-keeping are valuable managerial tools, they require time to maintain and therefore represent a cost themselves. These costs of preparing and maintaining budgets and records must be included in the total cost of the business. But if they aid the manager in making sound management decisions, then the benefits certainly outweigh any costs involved. As an example of cost accounting, information regarding the production of geraniums from unrooted cuttings is included. These figures represent updated information originally reported by Brumfield in Tips in Growing Zonal Geraniums. It was assumed in this analysis that 1 cutting per 4″ pot was used at a cost of $0.14 per cutting and the geraniums took 13 weeks to finish. Costs are generally categorized into fixed (overhead) and variable costs because they are treated differently. Variable costs increase as the number of plants produced increases and vice versa. Fixed or overhead costs do not vary directly with production. They remain constant regardless of level of output, and are incurred even if production does not take place.
Variable Costs
Variable costs are estimated by multiplying the quantities of each input used by their input prices. Their costs can be determined easily from invoices, but may have to be allocated to the appropriate enterprise. Materials should be charged directly to each enterprise according to the amount used. It is a little more difficult to allocate the costs of labor, machinery, and equipment to any one enterprise. That is where detailed records really pay off. They greatly simplify this allocation process.
Material costs are the easiest variable costs to allocate, and include the costs of cuttings, pots, growing medium, fertilizer, and other chemicals. Costs of individual inputs will vary from producer to producer, depending on quantity discounts, method of payment, rate of fertilization, pesticide practices, and other managerial decisions. Materials costs per 4″ geranium totaled $0.26 and are summarized below.
Production labor is slightly more difficult to allocate to each unit, but with some simple record keeping, it can be accomplished. Many of these tasks are done for one size container over a period of several hours. Simply note the number of people performing the operation and when they start and finish. then count the number of units they finish in that time period. From this you can calculate the time per unit and multiply it by the wage rate, including benefits. This will give you the cost of that specific labor task per unit. Even though this method is not exactly precise, you will be amazed at how consistent the time per flat will be if you time the operation on several different days. So once you time an operation, you can use that time frame in your cost accounting with a good deal of confidence. Of course, you will always have some unallocated labor (trips to and from the greenhouse, breaks, etc.), which can be included in overhead costs and allocated on a per square-foot- week basis.
Production labor costs for this example were estimated using a wage rate of $6.45 per hour. This includes a base wage of $5.00 and $1.45 per hour for benefits including social security, workman’s compensation, unemployment insurance, and vacation and sick days. The total amount of labor needed to produce one 4″ geranium was 73.60 seconds (15 seconds to stick the cutting, 15,50 seconds to pot the cutting, 4.80 seconds to apply pesticides, 14.60 seconds to water and fertilize, and 23.70 seconds to harvest). Thus, the production labor charge totaled $0.13 per 4″ geranium.
Interest on the amount of money it takes to cover materials and production labor costs must also be accounted for. First, determine the annual interest rate and divide by 52 to obtain the weekly interest rate. Next, multiply that figure by the number of weeks your money has been used from the time production costs are first incurred until the 4″ geraniums are sold. The interest rate is assumed to be 12% for this example.
Overhead Costs
Overhead costs include depreciation, interest on fixed assets, repairs, taxes, insurance, and general categories such as managerial salaries, utilities, office expenses, professional fees, advertising and promotional expenses, and bad debts. These costs cannot be allocated to specific crops, but can be allocated on some other basis such as cost per square-foot-week. To do this, take all overhead costs and divide by the number of weeks in production to obtain an annual overhead cost per week. Next divide that number by the actual square footage of greenhouse space. Finally, divide by the percentage of greenhouse space utilized by the 4″ geraniums to determine the bench cost per square foot-week.
Overhead costs for a typical 100,000 sq.ft. Southwestern greenhouse operation are estimated to be about $0.082 per square foot per week ($0.025 for depreciation, $0.005 for insurance, $0.006 for repairs, $0.001 for taxes, $0.024 for interest, and $0.021 for general overhead items). The overhead cost per 4″ geranium may be calculated as follows: 13 weeks in production X $0.082/sq.ft./week X 0.25 sq.ft./plant = $0.27/plant.
Total Cost
As seen in the table below, total costs for producing a 4″ geranium total $0.68 per plant. This is assuming an ideal situation where all the geraniums produced were saleable. Unfortunately, in reality, this is not the case. Some plants are lost to insects, diseases, or cultural problems, while others may be of such poor quality that they just cannot be sold. When losses occur, the empty bed space increases overhead costs per week, in addition to the variable costs which are lost. These types of factors must be considered when determining the true costs of production.
Uses of Cost Accounting Information
Now that we’ve discussed about how cost accounting budgets are developed, let’s talk about how they can be used. First of all, the estimated profit of various crops can be compared to select the more profitable crops and crop combinations. You may be producing crops that are not breaking even, which is not a very competitive situation to be in.
By the way, breaking even in cost accounting terms in not necessarily a bad thing. Remember that all costs are being covered including opportunity costs. Positive expected profits may be viewed as a return to risk or entrepreneurial talents.
One of the most important use of cost accounting budgets is that they help establish a minimum selling price based on production costs. There are many different ways of pricing horticultural products — some are good, and some not so good. Probably one of the most frequent pricing methods is to check what your competitors are charging for similar products and ask about the same price for yours. However, if you do this, you are assuming that (1) your competitors know their production costs and are pricing their products to cover these costs and (2) that your production costs are the same or less than your competitors. If either of these assumptions is incorrect, the possibility of losing money exists.
Another popular pricing strategy is to increase prices on all products a given percentage every year or so. This strategy assumes that any changes in costs of production affect all enterprises similarly, which is simply not true.
Probably the best pricing strategy is one based on costs of production that are determined through cost accounting procedures. Once the total costs of an enterprise are determined, then you know the base minimum price that should be charged to that product. The final selling price you charge ultimately depends on what you feel is a fair return on your investment and the risks associated with producing greenhouse crops. Again, by using costs of production as guide to pricing your products, you are at least guaranteeing that all your costs are covered and you are not producing products which are not profitable.
Please keep in mind that every business faces different costs. Do not assume that your costs are the same as this example! Every greenhouse firm faces it own unique set of circumstances and, thus, its own unique set of costs. Cost vary from greenhouse to greenhouse because of differences in climatic location, size, managerial skill and style, market channel, time of year, space utilization, wage rates, age and condition of facilities, and many other factors. Comparing your costs to industry averages will reveal areas where your costs are too high or other areas where your costs are too high or other areas where your costs are low and you have a market advantage. However, looking at industry averages is no substitute for doing your own cost accounting.
