SuperNova Case

Two students at university Axel F. and Susie Q. established the e-commerce company SuperNova AS and made a business plan for their new company. According to the plan, the company will sell goods that can be grouped in four main categories:

Purses, jewelry and other accessories

Training equipment

Home electronics Kitchenware and ornaments

Recently, Axel and Susie have visited exhibitions and trade fairs and have secured a valuable network of Asian manufacturers of goods in the four above categories. They have also found a small warehouse in the Oslo area and have negotiated terms for the Norwegian distribution of the goods. SuperNova AS was established January 2, 2023, and the company's opening balance looked as follows after Axel and Susie, who owns 50 per cent each, had privately covered the registration costs for the company:

Bank deposits 100 000

Total assets 100 000

Share capital 100 000

Total equity and debts 100 000

The financial planning is based on information retrieved from the company's business plan:

1. In January 2023, an investment of kr 500 000 will be made to cover the costs for the company's Internet site. Since the expected economic life of this asset is less than three years, the investment will not be capitalized and depreciated, but taken to cost immediately.

2. There will be a kr 150 000 deposit for the warehouse rent, to be paid in January 2023.

3. SuperNova uses a cost-based pricing model, with a mark-up (profit on top of purchase price including freight to Norway) of 80 per cent, before Value Added Tax.

4. The company has a free 30-day return policy and expects that as much as 20 per cent of the goods will be returned, measured in terms of sales revenue. The returned goods cannot be sold at full prices and will be offered to a discount outlet store for half of the original sticker price, the month after they have been returned to SuperNova.

5. For the sake of simplification, we assume that the goods arrive in Norway the same month they are ordered and that they are also paid this month.

6. The customers pay with debit/credit cards when the goods are purchased, and they also pay the freight costs in full.

7. Marketing activities take place on various social media platforms and the company plans in this respect to spend monthly kr 50 000 in Q1 and Q2 and kr 100 000 per month in Q3 and Q4. These costs are paid the same month as they occur.

8. The other operational costs are expected to be kr 25 000 per month in Q1, kr 30 000 per month in Q2, and kr 35 000 per month for the rest of 2023. These costs are also paid the same month as they occur.

9. Axel and Susie are uncertain about how much to budget for their own salaries and other personnel costs. The goal is to have a budgeted monthly rate of return on sales of 5 per cent after salaries and other personnel costs. Hence, the budget must be used to determine the level of the monthly salaries and other personnel costs. For the sake of simplicity, we can assume that all of these costs are paid the same month as they occur.

The sales and purchase budgets for 2023 are as follows (all figures ex VAT):

The above figures do not include the returned goods and the revenues from selling them for the second time at a discounted price, ref. point 4 above.

Question 1a ) Calculate for each month the company's net sales income (1) , cost of goods sold (2) and the closing balance of the inventory (3) . (1) The net sales income consists of the budgeted sales, less credit invoices due to customer returns and the sales income from re-selling the returned goods. (2) Based on the 80% mark-up pricing policy (3) Based on the cost of goods sold and the monthly change of inventory. You may disregard the fact that the company at the end of the year will have returned goods from December to be sold in January 2024 You are free to present the information as you want, but to avoid that your spreadsheet is wider than a landscape A4 page, we recommend that you present the data in the horizontal columns and use the rows of the spreadsheet for each of the 12 months in 2023.

The sales and purchase budgets for 2023 are as fol The above figures do not include the returned goods an second time at a discounted price, ref. point 4 above. Question 1a(15%) Calculate for each month the company's net sales incom balance of the inventory (3). (1) The net sales income consists of the budgeted sales, less cre