Luxuries Car Company was founded in 1950 by Trevor Smith-Jones, Sr., a British post-war immigrant to the United States. Smith-Jones had been a mechanic in an East London auto shop for several years, and when he arrived in Santa Barbara, California, in 1949, he decided to put his knowledge of British sports cars and his life savings into opening an auto shop that specialized in these cars.

Post-war California was devoted to the cult of the automobile, and there was no shortage of British sports car aficionados. Smith-Jones opened Luxuries Car Company in early 1950 and soon had a large number of clients. He realized that there was a substantial, untapped market in California for spare parts for British cars, and by 1953 Luxuries Car Company had left the auto repair business and had become solely a dealer in spare parts for British sports cars.

During his years as a mechanic in London, Smith-Jones had developed an extensive network of acquaintances in the British sports car industry. This network consisted mainly of spare parts dealers, auto dealerships, and sales representatives from the large automobile and parts manufacturing companies. He had maintained contact with these acquaintances while he was repairing cars in his Santa Barbara shop, and when he made the changeover to the spare parts business, his contacts were pleased to increase their export trade by continuing to sell parts to him. As the only U.S. importer of British sports car spare parts, Luxuries Car Company was able to sell its merchandise not only in southern California but also to auto parts dealers nationwide-wherever there were British sports car enthusiasts.

Luxuries Car Company's business continued to grow throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Suppliers in Britain remained reliable, and in the 1970s market demand increased for such new items as replacement upholstery, convertible tops, and large body parts such as fenders and hoods. Smith-Jones had to look beyond Britain to find regular suppliers for these items and, as a result, established connections in Taiwan, the Philippines, and Canada, as well as with some American manufacturers who produced custom items. Smith-Jones was an honest tradesman who was trusted by his suppliers, so supply lines were consistent and prices reliable.

In 1979, Smith-Jones's eldest son, Trevor Smith-Jones, Jr., joined the company as first assistant to his father. Smith-Jones, Jr. had inherited a passion for British sports cars from his father and had spent his teenage summers tinkering with vintage Triumphs, MGs, MGBs, and Jaguars that were in his father's garage. After graduating from Berkeley in 1979, Smith-Jones, Jr. accepted his father's offer to come to work at Luxuries Car Company and to learn the business inside out under his guidance. Smith-Jones, Jr. worked side-by-side with his father for the next several years, getting to know the suppliers and clients of Luxuries Car Company as well as the accounting and operations workings of the company. As the health of Smith-Jones, Sr. began to fail in the late 1980s, Smith-Jones, Jr. took over an increasingly large share of the daily responsibilities for running the company, although Smith-Jones, Sr. still kept a tight hand on the overall operation.

Smith-Jones, Sr. died in 1993, leaving Smith-Jones, Jr. as president and CEO of the Luxuries Car Company. Soon after his father's death, Smith-Jones, Jr. requested extensive assessments of the company's financial situation, its relations with suppliers and customers, and the structures of its accounting and operations systems. Already familiar with the company, the new CEO found no major surprises when he reviewed the results of the various department assessments. The company's financial situation was strong, with a current ratio of more than three-to-one and with long-term indebtedness (a mortgage on the Santa Barbara warehouse) of only 10 percent of stockholder's equity. Relations with suppliers remained steady and reliable, and operations at the warehouse were running smoothly, except for complaints of excessive paperwork from certain employees. Smith-Jones, Jr. had been aware of the paperwork problem for several years, but while his father was alive no changes to the system had been permitted. Smith-Jones, Sr. had believed that "you shouldn't change a system that has served you well for the last 30 years." Any attempts by Smith-Jones, Jr. to approach his father on the subject of reducing paperwork within the system had been quickly dismissed by the aging CEO.

The assessment of the company's accounting system revealed the full scope of the paperwork problem. Luxuries Car Company was still running under the original, completely manual accounting system that Smith-Jones, Sr. had put into place in the 1950s. Although the system had served the company adequately in the '50s and '60s, it had been outgrown by the end of the '70s. Smith-Jones, Jr. was convinced by the assessment that installation of a computerized accounting system throughout the company not only would reduce employee frustration with excessive paperwork but also would speed up order processing, thereby improving service to customers. In addition, it would help the company to keep better track of inventory levels. By using computerized accounting for inventory, the company could place inventory orders more efficiently, saving time and the expense of warehousing excessive inventory.

Other Information Concerning Luxuries Car Company Organizational Structure

In 1993, Luxuries Car Company had an after-tax profit of $400,000 on net sales of $1.5 million. The company employs 30 people in its plant in Santa Barbara. Luxuries Car Company is careful about the employees it hires, looking for enthusiastic, bright people who enjoy working with the customers. The employees range in age and experience, with the older, more experienced ones working in the technical assistance department because the company believes that their knowledge is most useful in the areas of direct customer contact.

When employees are hired, the company gives them several shares of Luxuries Car Company stock along with generous benefits. Smith-Jones and management believe that if their employees are also shareholders, they will be interested in the financial success of the company. Management wants to createan atmosphere within Luxuries Car Company where employees are actively involved in improving the business. Thus, if sales become stagnant, all of the employees will search for ways to stimulate business. When management announces that a new information system is being introduced, Luxuries Car Company employees eagerly accept the changes. There is no hesitation or skepticism about the new system.

Competition

The luxuries car industry in the United States is extremely competitive, with two privately held companies, Luxuries Car Company and Motor Works, dominating the market. Small local operations do exist. However, the majority of business belongs to these two companies because of their total commitment to servicing the sports car industry. Luxuries Car Company believes that its major threat in the industry comes from Motor Works because of the size of its operations and its threat to penetrate Luxuries Car Company's market region of the western United States.

Luxuries Car Company differs from Motor Works in that it deals only with British sports cars, while Motor Works supplies parts for European sports cars and some Japanese models. Motor Works, located in Fishkill, New York, was founded in 1974 by the Kidd family. The company quickly expanded, and today it employs 50 people and has yearly sales of approximately $3 million, almost twice the yearly sales of the Luxuries Car Company. These sales, however, result from supplying parts for all sports cars. While British sports cars are important to the business, equal attention is given to Italian and Japanese cars.

Motor Works' sizable sales are worrisome to Luxuries Car Company because it fears that Motor Works will use its profits to try to expand into its market region. However, Luxuries Car Company also believes that if it can design and implement a new information system to enhance its sales process, it can protect its current market share and possibly expand.

Relationship with Suppliers

All of the components sold by Luxuries Car Company are manufactured outside the United States, with most coming from Southeast Asia, specifically Korea and Taiwan. The parts are made abroad because of the significant price discounts due to the cheaper labor rates in Asia. A part manufactured in the United States would cost Luxuries Car Company up to three times what it would cost to have it made in Asia.

Luxuries Car Company depends primarily on six suppliers to provide its inventory. These suppliers provide parts exclusively to the Luxuries Car Company, while Motor Works and other smaller competitors import their parts either from Europe or Southeast Asian manufacturers. Because most of the parts are relatively easy and inexpensive to manufacture, Asian suppliers manufacture the entire range of parts. No one supplier specializes in any particular part. However, the quality of the parts may vary from supplier to supplier.

Luxuries Car Company has no way of tracking which part from which supplier is of the highest quality. If a few parts from the supplier are poor quality, even though the rest of its line is acceptable, Luxuries Car Company tends to flay the entire supplier's product line. Because there are only a few vendors and several vendors are thought to produce poor quality parts, Luxuries Car Company deals primarily with only one or two. This arrangement, however, is not acceptable because these vendors have been raising prices at an unacceptable rate. Luxuries Car Company wants to introduce an information system that tracks the quality of each part from each supplier so it can order specific parts from certain vendors. Not having to rely on few vendors for Luxuries Car Company's business should also help to reduce component prices.

Several other small problems exist between Luxuries Car Company and its suppliers because of Luxuries Car Company's manual operating process. Back-orders are not uncommon at Luxuries Car Company because lead time from suppliers is not consistent. Luxuries Car Company complains that its purchase orders are not being filled at an acceptable pace, while suppliers accuse Luxuries Car Company of giving them little notice of pending orders. Luxuries Car Company believes that the real problem lies in the purchasing process. The manual process is so lengthy that inventory levels are often depleted before the suppliers receive the purchase order. When Luxuries Car Company implements the new information system, it believes that the lead time problem will disappear and back-orders will decrease.

Suppliers often complain that their bills are not punctually paid. This, too, is directly related to Luxuries Car Company's manual accounting orders. Since bills must be reconciled before payment occurs, the pay date is often missed. Luxuries Car Company believes that an automated accounting system will help reconcile purchase orders and allow bills to be paid on time.

Despite these problems, Luxuries Car Company and its suppliers have a solid working relationship. Both depend upon each other for the bulk of their business. They have expressed interest in expanding any new systems that might facilitate their relationship. Customer Relations

Most parts sold by Luxuries Car Company go to individual car owners, with some parts purchased by mechanics and professional car restorers. Luxuries Car Company's business comes from customers who have a history of owning sports cars, because Luxuries Car Company realizes that only a small segment of the market consists of customers who just recently became involved with British sports cars. For Luxuries Car Company to attract new business, it must compete for the existing market share. At the same time, its main focus is on maintaining its customer base. Luxuries Car Company promotes car shows in the hope of attracting new people to the sports car industry. Its advertising is limited to monthly newsletters and automobile magazines.

Assessment of the Accounting System

The assessment was prepared by the office of the controller of the Luxuries Car Company.

The Revenue Cycle

Sales Order Taking. Luxuries Car Company makes all sales either by telephone or mail. All sales are on credit, and all customers have established lines of credit with the Luxuries Car Company. Phone sales orders are taken by a staff of salespeople who are knowledgeable about British sports cars. The sales information is recorded on standardized order forms and forwarded to the sales office. Mail orders are forwarded directly from the mail room to the sales office.

Sales Office. Personnel in the sales office verify that the item prices on each order form are correct. This is done by manually checking the price of each item by its item number in the preprinted price list book. If the sale is charged to a customer's credit card, personnel telephone the credit card company to verify the legitimacy of the charge. If the sale is to be put on the customer's account, the customer's file is reviewed and the credit history is checked.

Personnel must look at the inventory ledger to verify that items ordered are in stock. Each item must be located manually in the ledger by item number. This is only a preliminary check, however, because the inventory ledger is updated only once a week and is not always correct. If an item is out of stock, it is so noted on the sales order as prepared in the next step.

A five-part sales order form is typed up. Copy 1 is forwarded to the billing department. Copy 2 is forwarded to shipping. Copies 3 and 4 are forwarded to the warehouse, and Copy 5 is filed by customer number in the sales office after the sale has been manually recorded on the customer's file card.

Warehouse. The warehouse receives sales order Copies 3 and 4 from the sales office and picks the orders. Goods in stock are released to the shipping department with Copy 3 of the sales order. Copy 4 is filed in the warehouse file by sales order number.

Any items that are out of stock are marked as such on both Copies 3 and 4 of the sales order. Copy 3 goes forward with the items in stock, but Copy 4 is filed in a back-orders file by product code number. This file is reviewed when shipments of merchandise come into the warehouse. Back-ordered items can then be shipped out.

Each week, a warehouse employee prepares a list of items that were released from the warehouse during the week. This list is forwarded to inventory control.

Shipping. The shipping department receives Copy 2 of the sales order from the sales office and Copy 3, along with the goods, from the warehouse. Personnel in shipping compare Copy 2 with Copy 3, which may have been altered by the warehouse, and take note of any discrepancies. Copy 3 is marked "shipped" and is forwarded to the billing department. Warehouse personnel then preparea packing slip for the carton and key the shipment information into the UPS shipping meter. The packing slip is attached to the carton and the goods are shipped via UPS, which picks up shipments once each day. The shipping information is maintained in the locked UPS meter, and Copy 2 of the sales order is marked with the date shipped and filed in the shipping department's file.

Billing. The billing department receives the original phone or mail order form and Copy 1 of the sales order from the sales office. It then receives Copy 3 of the sales order, marked "shipped," from the shipping department. With these documents in hand, billing types up a three-part sales invoice. Copy 1 is mailed to the customer, Copy 2 is forwarded to accounts receivable, and Copy 3 is kept in billing. Based on the day's sales invoices, daily batch totals are calculated and the sales journal is maintained. Copy 3 of the sales invoice, the original order form, Copies 1 and 3 of the sales order form and the tape of batch totals are all filed in the billing department.

Accounts Receivable. The accounts receivable department receives Copy 2 of the sales invoice. This department is responsible for accounting for the numerical sequence of the prenumbered sales invoices. Staff here also post accounts receivable to the accounts receivable ledger. After posting, the sales invoice copy is filed in accounts receivable by the due date of the receivable.

The mail room forwards Copy 1 of the daily cash prelist as well as customer remittance advices to accounts receivable. With these documents, accounts receivable first compares the prelist to the remittance advices and then posts the customer payments to the accounts receivable ledger. The cash prelist and remittance advices are filed in the customer records file in accounts receivable by customer number.

Mail Room. The point of entry for all Luxuries Car Company mail is the mail room. Here, customers' checks, remittance advices, and mail order forms are received each day. Once the mail is sorted, the mail order forms are directly forwarded to the sales office for processing of all sales requested on those forms.

A three-part daily cash prelist is prepared, and all checks are endorsed to Luxuries Car Company with a hand stamp. Copy 1 of the cash prelist is forwarded to accounts receivable, and Copy 3 is forwarded to the cashier's office. Copy 2 is kept in the mail room. Mail room personnel then separate the checks from the remittance advices. All checks are forwarded to the cashier, and the remittance advices are sent to accounts receivable. Copy 2 of the cash prelist is filed in the mail room by date prepared.

Cashier. The cashier receives copy 3 of the cash prelist and the endorsed customer checks. A two-copy bank deposit slip is prepared and taken to the bank along with the checks. Deposits are made once each day.

The Expense Cycle

Inventory Control. Inventory control receives a weekly list of inventory items released from the warehouse. From this list, the inventory ledger is updated.

The inventory control manager prepares a purchase requisition whenever the amount in stock of an inventory item falls below that item's reorder point level. The purchase requisition is prepared in duplicate, and Copy 1 is forwarded to purchasing, which will preparea purchase order at the appropriate time. Inventory control receives Copy 3 of the purchase order from the purchasing department and compares it to its Copy 2 of the original purchase requisition. The two documents are filed together by purchase requisition number and are held until the department receives notification that the items ordered have been received.

Receipt of the inventory items ordered will be confirmed by Copy 2 of the receiving dock's receiving report. When the receiving report arrives in inventory control, the purchase requisition and purchase order are pulled from the file and compared to it. The inventory items received are then posted to the inventory ledger. Copy 2 of the purchase requisition, Copy 3 of the purchase order, and Copy 2 of the receiving report are all filed together in the inventory control department by purchase requisition number.

Purchasing. Copy 1 of the purchase requisition is received from inventory control. The purchasing manager chooses the most appropriate supplier based on supplier information kept on file in the purchasing office.

Once a supplier has been chosen, a six-part purchase order is typed up. Copies 1 and 2 are mailed to the supplier, and Copy 3 is sent to inventory control. Copy 4 is forwarded to accounts payable, and Copy 5 to the receiving dock. Copy 5 is a "blind copy," that is, it does not include the quantities ordered of each item. Copy 6 is kept in purchasing and filed along with Copy 1 of the purchase requisition by purchase order number, pending receipt of the receiving report.

When purchasing receives Copy 1 of the receiving report from the receiving dock, the purchase order is pulled from the file. Quantities received according to the receiving report are compared to the quantities ordered. Suppliers' invoices (in two copies) either accompany the shipments or are received through the mail. In either case, the quantities and prices billed on the supplier's invoice are compared to the purchasing documents before approval.

Copy 2 of the approved supplier's invoice is forwarded to accounts payable. Copy 1 of the purchase requisition, Copy 6 of the purchase order, Copy 1 of the receiving report, and Copy 1 of the approved supplier's invoice are filed together, by purchase order number, in the closed purchase orders file in the purchasing department.

Receiving Dock. The receiving dock receives Copy 5, which is the "blind copy" of the purchase order, from the purchasing department. The purchase order is kept on file until the goods arrive at the dock. When the shipment arrives, the purchase order is pulled from the file, and the items received are inspected and counted. When the shipment has been cleared, a four-part receiving report is typed. Copy 1 of the receiving report is sent to purchasing, Copy 2 is sent to inventory control, Copy 3 is forwarded to the warehouse along with the goods, and Copy 4 is filed by purchase order number, with the purchase order attached.

Warehouse. The warehouse receives the shipment of goods with Copy 3 of the receiving report. The warehouse person signs the report upon receiving the goods at the warehouse, and the items are shelved. The signed Copy 3 of the receiving report is forwarded to accounts payable.

Accounts Payable. Copy 4 of the purchase order is received from purchasing and kept on file pending receipt of the goods purchased. When the department receives the signed Copy 3 of the receiving report from the warehouse, which indicates that the items purchased have been received, accounts payable matches the items received with those ordered on the purchase order. These two documents are kept on file until the supplier's invoice is received.

When the approved Copy 2 of the supplier's invoice is received from the purchasing department, accounts payable compares it to the purchase order and receiving report and verifies the accuracy of the supplier's prices, extensions, and footings. The three documents are filed together by due date of the supplier's invoice. The invoice packet will be presented to the cashier's office for payment when its due date arrives.

Cashier. On the date on which an account payable falls due, the cashier receives from accounts payable the approved supplier's invoice to be paid. Attached to the invoice are Copy 4 of the purchase order and Copy 3 of the receiving report. The cashier reviews these documents and prepares a check for payment. As the cashier may not sign the check, the authorized signature or signatures must be obtained before the check can be mailed. Once the check is ready for disbursement, the supplier's invoice, marked "paid," and the attached documents are returned to accounts payable for filing.

As the day's checks are prepared, so is that day's check register, which is a log of every check written in check number sequence. Two copies of the register are prepared, and Copy 2 is forwarded to the employee in the controller's office who maintains the general ledger. Copy 1 of the check register is kept in the cashier's office and is used to record cash disbursements in the cash disbursements journal. The cashier's copy of the check register is kept on file by register date.

Payroll. Luxuries Car Company uses the services of XYZ Payroll People, an independent payroll service company, to prepare payroll checks, payroll taxes, and all supporting documentation. Copies of payroll documentation are kept on file in the controller's office.

Question 1

Analyze the current system for revenue and expense cycles and discuss the specific weaknesses identified for both systems.Discuss the recommendations and improvements for each weakness identified. (30 marks)

• split them into revenue and expenses