Job costing and ethics. Andre Preneur supervises two consulting jobs in the consulting firm of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, which does studies on environmental cleanup. One of the consulting jobs is for the Canadian government, the other is for General Electric, Inc. After receiving the monthly financial reports on the two jobs, he immediately called his boss to report that costs were way over budget on the General Electric job.
‘‘The job is only about three-fourths complete, but we've spent all the money that we had budgeted for the entire job,'' he said.

‘‘You'd better watch these job costs more carefully in the future,'' his boss advised. ‘‘Meanwhile, charge the rest of the costs needed to complete the General Electric job to your Canadian government job. We're under budget on that job, plus we get reimbursed for costs on the government job.''

a. What should Andre do?

b. Does it matter that Andre's consulting firm is reimbursed for costs on the Canadian government job? Explain.