Final answer:
In the context of the warehouse operated by Greendale Office Products, the Packaging and Delivery departments are the operating departments, while the HR and IT departments are the service departments. Total costs for November would be the sum of all explicit and allocated costs, and the cost allocation results refer to how the costs from service departments have been distributed to operating departments.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question asks for assistance in understanding various aspects of cost allocation within a warehouse operated by Greendale Office Products. To address this, we'll break down the parts of the inquiry:
- Operating departments are the areas of the business that are directly involved in producing the company's goods or services. In this scenario, the Packaging and Delivery departments would be considered the operating departments.
- Service departments provide support to the operating departments by performing functions that are helpful but not directly involved in the production process. Here, the HR (Human Resources) and IT (Information Technology) departments serve as service departments to the warehouse.
- To determine total costs for November, all explicit costs such as office rental, salaries, and any other operational expenses need to be totaled. This might include direct costs associated with the Packaging and Delivery departments, as well as costs allocated from the service departments (HR and IT).
- The phrase 'cost allocation results' refers to the final figures after assigning the shared costs of the service departments to the operating departments. This process allows the business to account for the full cost of each operating department, including indirect support services.
When applying this information to the provided data, it would involve totaling the known expenses to calculate the overall costs and then reviewing the available cost allocation results to understand how indirect costs have been assigned.