The Howard Leasing Company is a privately held, medium-sized business that purchases school buses and leases them to school districts, churches, charitable organizations, and other businesses. To better serve its customers and, more important, to protect its investment in the buses, Howard operates a large maintenance facility to maintain and repair leased vehicles. Howard’s annual sales for last year were

$37 million, with a net income of $2.9 million. Howard employs approximately 150 people.

You were recently hired by Howard, and you are eager to prove your worth to the company. Your supervisor just called you into her office and asked you to prepare an accounts receivable aging report as of the end of the year for use in the upcoming audit of the company’s financial statements.

REQUIRED

a. What is an accounts receivable aging report?

b. Why is an accounts receivable aging report needed for an audit?

c. What is an accounts receivable aging report used for in normal company operations?

d. What data will you need to prepare the report?

e. Where will you collect the data you need to prepare the report?

f. How will you collect the necessary data for the report?

g. What will the report look like (i.e., how will you organize the data collected to create the information your supervisor needs for the audit)? Prepare an accounts receivable aging report in Excel or another spreadsheet package.

h. How will you distribute the report? How many copies will you make? Who should receive the copies? What security features will you implement?