Professional Issues and questions in Process Costing

In a process cost system, physical inventories of work in process must be taken at the end of each accounting period. Ordinarily, each department head is responsible for his own inventory, and the methods he uses to determine such data are crude by comparison with procedures used for determining year-end physical inventory. It is not unusual for a department head to estimate rather than count his inventory in process. Consequently, his figures are bound to have errors. Is this good practice or should more accurate methods, such as having inventory teams determine inventories, be used?

Professional Issues: What is the justification of spreading the cost of lost units over remaining good units? Should the cost of these units ever be charged to overhead? Will the answer be different if units are lost 

(a) at the beginning of operations,
(b) during operations, (c) at the end of operations, or (d) in the originating department?

Professional Issues:  Select the answer which best completes the following statement. The type of spoilage that should not affect the recorded cost of inventories is 

(a) abnormal spoilage, 

(b) normal spoilage, 

(c) seasonal spoilage, or 

(d) standard spoilage.