Throughout this assignment, you are to take on the role of advisor to the President of a manufacturing or processing organization. In the first submission you are to assume that the organization has 25 employees. To be clear, this is 25 Full-Time Equivalent employees. One FTE works ~2,000 hours per year. The business will be B2B, e.g. it may sell to retailer rather than directly to consumers.

a) In a paragraph or two, describe the organization on which you will base your assignment. Describe the products or services you provide and how the organization makes money. Identify the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code.

b) In two paragraphs, discuss the key strategic challenges of this organization. For example, if it is a bakery, how might it be affected by movements towards gluten free diets?

c) Create a mock set of financial statements consisting of the balance sheet and the income statement. These should be comparative to a fictional previous year.

d) Provide details for current year sales by units (e.g. cups, candelabras, Lamborghinis), average sales price, and the average cost of goods sold (if any).

e) Describe the general roles of current employees. How many are assigned to production or delivery? How many are assigned to management and administrative positions other than accounting? How many (if any) are assigned to accounting roles, and what are those roles?

Where are the marks?

In this first submission, any reasonable effort should get a full five marks. An auditor first has to understand the organization and how it operates. This will help identify key risks. Your financial statements should reflect somewhat of your production. If you say you have sold 1,000 units and have 10 people in production, then each person makes about 100 units or one every 2.5 days. Does this make sense in the context of your organization?