Scenario Don Flowers, owner of VGTBLS (pronounced Vegetables), has three food trucks that specialize in vegetarian and vegan fast- prepared cuisine. He looks around the conference room as his management team chatting as they settle in for the monthly meeting. "Let's get started," Don said, "we have a lot to cover today, and frankly it's not all good news." The room fell quiet. Don continued, "As you know we recently experienced a cash shortage despite last quarter's record sales. I can't keep going back to the bank to support operations. I am counting on each of you to figure out a way to keep this from happening in the future." Jasmine Mitchell, the newest truck manager, raised her hand somewhat sheepiskly. "Sir, perhaps if we looked at the Master Budget for last month we could begin to identify areas for . improvement." Don looked at Alex, his Controller. "Well, Alex that's your area of expertise and Jasmine's suggestion makes sense. Let's have a look at that Master Budget." Alex looked down at the table and began shuffling through his paperwork. "Well Don, we don't exactly have a Master Budget per se. I mean we have budgets for different areas within the company, but I really rely on the truck managers to know what they need to do in their areas." Terry, one of the truck managers and oldest employee, spoke up. "Hey, wait a minute Alex. You're the numbers guy. I'm doing everything I can just to keep up with customer demand. I don't have time to worry about that kind of thing. We had a vendor shipment not show up last week and I had an entire shift of downtime. Besides, that's your job, Alex." "You know he has a point there Alex. You are the Controller. I need Terry to put all of his time towards keeping his route running smoothly," Don said. "Look, Don, Alex replied, "In January I asked everyone to send me their budgets for the year and the only thing I got was a sales budget from Peter with a note attached that asked for a pay increase for his workers." Jasmine raised her hand to speak. "Well, I know I'm new here, but at my last company we had budgets for sales, food prep." hours - pretty much everything was budgeted. It seemed to work pretty well, and everyone had a good grasp of where we were financially." Alex, the Controller, gave Jasmine an icy stare. Don turned to Alex. "Alex, I think this young lady has a point. Is there some reason why we aren't budgeting like she described?" "Well", Alex began, "It's really complicated, Don. Terry is short two people and he's paying overtime to his remaining people just to meet demand on his route. And then there's the problem with suppliers. Last week I got a bill from a vendor for materials v v Normal No Spacing Heading Heading 2 Title we didn't even order. How am I supposed to keep track of all of this? And then ...." Don raised his hand to cut Alex off. "Look, I know we are a small, growing company - but the fact of the matter is that I can't keep going to the bank every month, borrowing money to pay the vendors/suppliers. For heaven's sake - we are making record sales right now." By this time Don was red in the face and everyone around the table was looking down intently at the conference table. He continued, "What am I going to tell the investors at the next meeting when our profit is in the red?" "This is going to end, today. Jasmine, you seem like a smart young lady. You are going to work with Alex and anyone else in this company to get us on board with establishing and using budgets to correctythis situation," Don explained. "Further, as for the rest of you - when Jasmine comes and asks you for information treat her as if it was me making the request. Understood?" Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. "Meeting adjourned, "Don declared. Questions 1. Identify the problems that appear to exist in VGTBLS budgetary control system and explain how these problems are contributing to the company's poor cash position