National Imports, Inc. is a medium-size national auto repair shop for company of fleet cars with its corporate headquarters located in Orlando, Florida. The company operates in five states in the Northeastern United States. As the chief cash manager for the company; one of your responsibilities is to effectively manage the firm’s cash collection system. Your firm receives an average of 2,000 remittances per month with a total face value of $10,000. Under your current collection system, your customers remit their invoice payments directly to the corporate headquarters in Orlando. Therefore, the typical mail delay is 4 days and remittances remain at corporate headquarters for 3 days. As chief the cash manager, you have been informed that the average deposit receives good funds in 3 days. Assume that there is 365 days in a year. Complete parts a. through c. below.

a. Calculate the monthly total cost for your company's cash collection system if your firm's opportunity cost is 5% and your bank charges $0.25 per item deposited plus a monthly fixed cost of $300. For purposes of performing this calculation, refer to the Cost Analysis calculation process on page 327 in your text.

b. The bank is interested in selling you on their lockbox service, reducing your mail float days by 4 days, processing float days by 1 day, and availability float by 1 day. If the bank raises its bank charge per item to $0.40 and the monthly fixed cost from $300 to $400. All other items remain the same, including the opportunity cost of 5%.

c. Based upon your calculations and analysis, should you change to the lockbox service? Why or why not?