Dean Corporation is an industrial instrument manufacturer supplying precision equipment to manufacturers in the Midwest. The administrative offices are located in a downtown building and the production, shipping, and receiving departments are housed in a renovated warehouse a few blocks away.

$$

Customers place orders by telephone. The Sales Order department authorizes credit for existing customers in good standing.$$ The Accounts Receivable Department runs a credit check on new customers. Then the Controller checks inventory availability for the order.

$$

The employee who takes the order prepares a sales invoice based on the items ordered and then mails the invoice to the customer. All sales are on credit. During the past year sales have increased dramatically, but $15\%$ of credit sales have had to written off as uncollectible, including several large orders from first$-$time customers.

$$An employee in the warehouse picks the customer orders and then takes the order to the shipping department and places the order near the loading dock in alphabetical sequence by customer name. The loading dock is used both for outgoing shipments to customers and to receive incoming deliveries

$$There have been a number of errors in which customers were sent the wrong items. There have also been some delays in shipping because items that supposedly were in stock could not be found in the warehouse. Although a perpetual inventory is maintained, there has not been a physical count of inventory for two years.

Required:

Identify all of the weaknesses in Dean Corporation's revenue cycle procedures and propose a solution.