You are a Financial Analyst for a large corporation. The Chief Financial Officer

(CFO) of the company has just reviewed preliminary 3rd quarter earnings with the

company CEO. The meeting did not go well. The company publicly announced a

target of 5% growth in earnings (or net income) for this year over the previous

year. Earnings growth will be closer to 3% based on quarterly income statements

thus far. The CEO has directed the CFO to make recommendations by the end of

the week as to how the company could quickly boost reported earnings (or net

income) in the 4th quarter and potentially meet the 5% earnings growth target.

The CFO has called a meeting of all financial analysts on her staff. She has given

all of you the following:

recommend two actions that can be

implemented quickly and fully explain how each action would potentially increase

reported net income.