Suppose you are the loan officer of a commercial bank. You have just calculated the following financial ratios of a few business customers.

		Most Recent Year	One Year Ago	Two Years Ago	Three Years Ago
a.	Average collection period	76 days	65 days	57 days	54 days
b.	Total asset turnover	2.02x	1.45x	0.85x	0.72x
c.	Fixed asset turnover	4.12x	3.56x	2.87x	1.56x
d.	Current ratio	1.54x	2.53x	3.54x	4.53x
e.	Profit margin	14%	19%	25%	29%
f.	Total debt ratio	56.8%	58.4%	63.9%	66.3%
g.	Times interest earned	0.7x	1.5x	2.2x	3.5x

A.What does the trend in the average collection period in the table above indicate about the company? Explain your answer.

B.Which one from the table measures a companys ability to repay short-term debt? Is the companys ability to repay short-term debt showing a good sign in time-trend analysis? Explain your answer.

C.Which one from the table measures the amount of sales generated from the companys total assets? Is this ratio showing a good sign in the time-trend analysis? Explain your answer.