MB-310 · Question #125
Case Study 3 - Alpine Ski House Background Alpine Ski House has three partially owned franchises and 10 fully owned resorts throughout the United States and Canada. Alpine Ski House's percentage…
Ledger Allocation Configuration - Alpine Ski House The Two Requirements Being Mapped | Requirement | Correct Setup | |---|---| | Advertising costs balanced across 10 (then 12) resorts | Equally | | Administration costs split proportional to sales | Basis |…
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Ledger Allocation Configuration - Alpine Ski House
The Two Requirements Being Mapped
| Requirement | Correct Setup |
|---|---|
| Advertising costs balanced across 10 (then 12) resorts | Equally |
| Administration costs split proportional to sales | Basis |
Placement-by-Placement Explanation
Advertising Costs → Equally
The requirement states costs must be "balanced across the 10 resorts" and later "split across the 12 resorts" once construction completes.
Why Equally: The Equally allocation method divides the source amount into identical shares across all destination lines - no manual percentages or weights needed. Critically, when resorts 11 and 12 open, you only add new destination lines; the engine recalculates the equal share automatically. This is the only method that is inherently self-adjusting for headcount changes.
Administration Costs → Basis
The requirement states costs must be split "proportional to the amount of sales generated."
Why Basis: The Basis method reads actual posted financial data (in this case, sales account balances by resort dimension) and uses those amounts as the denominator to derive each resort's allocation percentage dynamically each period. A resort generating 30% of total sales absorbs 30% of admin costs - no manual input required.
Why the Other Items Are Wrong Here
| Item | Why Not Used |
|---|---|
| Fixed percentage | Requires manually coded percentages per destination. Works if shares never change, but breaks when new resorts open and doesn't respond to shifting sales. |
| Fixed weight | Assigns static numeric weights per destination. Same problem - static, manual, does not reflect real sales data. |
Common Misconceptions
- "Fixed percentage works for advertising (10% × 10 resorts)" - It would work today, but when resort 11 opens you'd have to manually edit all 12 lines to 8.33%.
Equallyhandles this automatically. - "Fixed weight could proxy for sales" - Only if weights are updated every period manually.
Basisreads live ledger balances, making it the correct dynamic choice. - Basis vs. Fixed weight confusion - Both sound like ratio-based splits, but
Basisuses actual posted financial data as its source;Fixed weightuses manually entered static numbers. The word "proportional to sales" in the requirement is the signal that live data is needed →Basis.
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