I hope you all enjoyed a fun and restful Thanksgiving
break. My family and I have had a great
weekend and I look forward to getting back to school on Monday. With only two weeks before semester exams,
many tend to ease up on things and take it slow before Winter
Break. During this time, the most
successful people take advantage of the laziness of others and pull ahead while
others lag behind. By working hard these
next two weeks, we will continue moving Pick-It Sweets & Treats to the top
of the Virtual Network.
This week, we are going to do things a little
differently. Due to our amazing success
at the Trade Fair this year, amassing almost $100,000 MORE revenue than our
anticipated sales goal of $84,000, we have been able to catch up on the lack of
sales made during class in the weeks leading up to our trip.
While we will still focus on pushing our sales forward (CEO
and others have worked on brokering partnerships with other businesses), we
should also focus on buying from other businesses.
In the real world, when you have
discretionary
income, you should purchase things that you want.
Given that any money you have left at the end
of the year gets drained from your personal bank account anyway, once you’ve
purchased everything you need, you should spend your remaining money on things
that might interest you.
This drives the
economy and the process of purchasing can help you make contacts with other
businesses.
That said, each day this week, one of our objectives will be
to make a purchase on the VE Network.
Below you will see from whom each purchase will be made each day:
Monday – A business you remember from the Trade Fair
Tuesday – Another business you remember from the Trade Fair
Wednesday – A firm outside of Tennessee
Thursday – A firm outside of the United States
Friday – Everyone in class decides upon a single firm from
whom we will all make a purchase
Each day you make a purchase, you are to actually pay for
your purchase immediately, using your own money and transferring funds by adding
a payee from your bank account. If you
have any trouble figuring out this process, please consult with someone from
Accounting/Finance, as that entire department has experience using this feature
in the Portal. After you have paid for
your product/service, you then must email the firm directly, thanking them for
providing you with something you wanted AND encouraging them to visit our
website to find products/services of ours that might interest them. You will request that they email you directly
if they have any issues finalizing a purchase on our site. This will ensure that we close the deal on
the sale and receive payment.
In addition to purchasing goods on the network, we have a
lot of other tasks to tend to. The most
daunting task that must get done this week is handling inventory records,
purchases and sales journal entries, and handling payroll properly. Next, we also have to improve upon our weekly
newsletter. Each week, there is progress
on this project, but there is still a long way for us to go. Another project that we need to start is an
electronic catalog of our products/services.
This will be an ongoing project that should take approximately two weeks
to complete, so the deadline for this will be 12/12/14. Finally, we will need to make sure we are
moving forward with the best looking website possible. We need to make sure the site is easy to
navigate, user-friendly for purchases, and has a well-functioning shopping cart
that generates a follow-up email confirming details of the purchase. This will help sales and finance stay on top
of accounts receivable.
Below is a breakdown of tasks to be completed by department:
Accounting/Finance
(plus M Lewis and E Kleinhans)
- Make sure purchases and cash payments journals are accurate
for our previous purchase and payment for starting inventory
- Complete sales journal entries for each sale at Trade Fair
- Your receipts (see receipt book from Trade Fair) are your
source documents for each transaction
- Accounts receivable – Central Bank will be your customer
account since the Central Bank is who deposits the money into our account when
they’ve seen that our deposits are accurate
- Purchase Inventory to cover amount of goods sold from the
Trade Fair
- Complete Purchases Journal entries for all inventory
purchased
- Accounts payable – Wholesale Marketplace is vendor
- Pay cash for inventory purchased – from firm bank account
- Complete Cash Payments Journal entry when cash has been paid
out
- This should be a single cash payment entry covering all
inventory purchased
- Pay employees – please make sure to take out appropriate
taxes/insurance withholdings and allowances
IT/Web Design
- Add catering services to website (I’ve been told this has
been added already, but have not yet found anything on our home page or website)
- Add new products and services to website – see above for new
products/packages and consult with Finance/Sales for details
- Please make sure we have a functioning cart – If you are
really at a loss for how to make it work, consult with another firm. Unfortunately, this is not an area of
expertise of mine.
- Work with Sales to complete “Item of the Week” flyer for week of 12/8-12/12
- This flyer will be distributed 12/5 to all on
our mailing list
HR/Admin
- Weekly newsletter - Please include:
- An article about OUR
trade fair results, positive experiences from the Trade Fair, ideas for next
year’s booth - this might end up being a 2-page article
- Employee spotlight - Conduct an interview and include highlights or full questions with answers
- An article about what’s going on in
business today (please find at least two sources that discuss a business topic
going on right now and cite evidence from each article that support your idea)
- Be sure to include more color and images as we had discussed previously
- Finalize company handbook (include rules/regulations,
policies/procedures) – this should have been finished before the Trade Fair
- Begin working on product catalog – finished product due
12/12/14
In addition to this, we need real merchandise to sell at the
concession stand on Tuesday. I have the
beverages covered (water, soda, Gatorade), but we need candy and chips to be
donated for sale. After this week, I
will purchase more items for next week.
I also need two students to work the concession stand with me after
school. Please select two students on
Monday and have all concession inventory to my classroom no later than Tuesday
morning.
Let’s keep pushing while others are taking an early
break. Our effort these next few weeks
can really catapult us ahead of the rest, so let’s make the most of our time.
