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.
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 (plus M
Lewis and J Hanks)
- 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 receipt book
from Trade Fair) are your source documents for each transaction
- Debit Accounts Receivable –
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 Skiddles (yes, this is how we’ll spell
it) 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 Steffan made a good contact at the Trade Fair.
- Work with Sales to complete “Item
of the Week” flyer for week of 12/8-12/12
- This flyer will be distributed
12/4 to all on our mailing list
Sales
· Please add Skiddles 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 and Thursday. Please
select two 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.
