A) The Langston Recreational Company (LRC) manufactures ice skates for racing, figure skating, and hockey. The company is located in Kearns, Utah, so it can be close to the Olympic Ice Shield, where many Olympic speed skaters train. Given the precision required to make skates, tracking manufacturing costs is very important to management so it can price the skates appropriately. To capture and collect manufacturing costs, the company acquired an automated cost accounting system from a national vendor. The vendor provides support, maintenance, and data and program backup service for LRCs system. LRC operates one shift, five days a week. All manufacturing data are collected and recorded by Saturday evening so that the prior weeks production data can be processed. One of managements primary concerns is how the actual manufacturing process costs compare with planned or standard manufacturing process costs. As a result, the cost accounting system produces a report that compares actual costs with standards costs and provides the difference, or variance. Management focuses on significant variances as one means of controlling the manufacturing processes and calculating bonuses. Occasionally, errors occur in processing a weeks production cost data, which requires the entire weeks cost data to be reprocessed at a cost of $34,500. The current risk of error without any control procedures is 8%. LRCs management is currently considering a set of cost accounting control procedures that is estimated to reduce the risk of the data errors from 8% to 3%. This data validation control procedure is projected to cost $1,000 per week. Required: a. Perform a cost/benefit analysis of the data-validation control procedures. b. Based on your analysis, make a recommendation to management regarding the control procedure. B) What is the accountants role in the computer acquisition process? Should the accountant play an active role, or should all the work be left to computer experts? In what aspects of computer acquisition might an accountant provide a useful contribution?