Back At It - No Slowing Down

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 Make-A-Meal to the top of the Virtual Network.

In order to achieve our goals, we will need to stimulate the economy.  One way we can do this is to spend our money instead of holding onto it (unless you have a big purchase you are saving up for).  Another way is to motivate others to buy from us.  We obviously need to drive the economy by making good purchases and allowing the stronger businesses, like us, to thrive.  That’s why our main focus (outside of operating the business) is buying from well-run businesses.

While we will still focus on pushing our sales forward (CEO and our VP of IT have worked on brokering partnerships with other businesses), we should also focus on buying.  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 build even more 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 – please consult with those who attended the Trade Fair for assistance if needed

Tuesday – Another business you remember from the Trade Fair

Wednesday – A firm outside of Tennessee (California, NY, NJ, NC, SC, MI)

Thursday – A firm outside of the United States – There is a solution for purchasing from international firms and we will cover this on Thursday

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.  This is to be done EVEN IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE AN INVOICE.  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.  The result of this transaction SHOULD ensure that we receive a lot of orders on our site.

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.  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

• Consolidate sales spreadsheets from Trade Fair
• Complete funds request from Trade Fair Sales with facilitator
• Update inventory by making appropriate purchases on wholesale marketplace
• Review what we have in stock
• Deplete inventory of what was sold from Trade Fair
• Replenish inventory so that we have at least three to five of every item in stock
• Debit Merchandise Inventory for each item and credit Cash when you purchase each item
• Complete sales journal entries for each sale at Trade Fair
• Your receipts (see “Form Responses” from Trade Fair) are your source documents for each transaction - Begin with R1, R2, R3, etc.
• Debit Accounts Receivable and Credit Sales – Central Bank and Credit Sales until we receive funds
• Debit Cash and Credit Accounts Receivable – Central Bank once funds are received
• 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 Trade Fair Bundles to website.  These bundles could easily sell if people see them on our site
• Add new products and services to website – we have discussed adding specific desserts and other items, so let’s do it
• 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, but Chaz excels at figuring out web design issues.
• Work with Sales to complete “Item of the Week” flyer for week of 12/6-12/10
• This flyer will be distributed 12/ to all on our mailing list

Sales

·      Please add specific desserts and appropriate bundles to our inventory spreadsheet

·      Reach out to firms from the Trade Fair and make sure they are aware of our new products

·      Work closely with IT to ensure our website AND product line are in line.  At the moment there are some discrepancies that you need to address

·      Please make sure all 4 sections of the display board are decorated and include information about our products.  This will ensure everyone knows what we have to offer

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 (I’d love to hear about Black Friday and Cyber Monday as well as anything about Christmas shopping)
• Be sure to include more color and images as we had discussed previously

In addition to this, I also need two students to work the concession stand with me after school on Tuesday.  Please select three students on Monday and have all concession inventory ready for the after school rush,

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.