A very successful car washing shop has roughly 2.4 million dollar revenue every year. Since this is quite a large amount of money for a car washing shop, the IRS (tax people) wants to check whether this establishment is laundering money (sounds familiar?); however, due to the limited resources, they want to be 95% confident in their decision; thus, they send an investigator to record the daily number of customers and record down how much that each customers have to pay on average for the service. The investigator came back and reported that there are roughly 2,000 customers for the month and each one of them paying roughly 80 dollars on average for the services with a standard deviation of 30 dollars. Given this information, what is the approximate probability that the car washing shop can achieve it current claimed revenue and what would be your conclusion here about the legitimacy of this car washing shop (i.e whether they are laundering money or not)?

Details of Notes Receivable and Related Entries

Gen-X Ads Co. produces advertising videos. During the current year ending December 31, Gen-X Ads received the following notes:

Required:

Assume 360 days in a year.

1. Determine for each note (a) the due date and (b) the amount of interest due at maturity, identifying each note by number.

Feedback

Count the number of days in each month until the total number of days is reached for the term of the note and this will be the due date. Interest is not charged on the first day of the note.

Typically, the maker of a dishonored note fails to pay the note on the due date. A company that holds a dishonored note transfers the face amount of the note plus any interest due back to an accounts receivable account. Interest revenue is not dependent on receiving the interest at this point.

Cash received will include the maturity value of the note.

Learning Objective 6.

2. Journalize the entry to record the dishonor of Note (3) on its due date. If an amount box does not require an entry, leave it blank or enter "0".

Feedback

Count the number of days in each month until the total number of days is reached for the term of the note and this will be the due date. Interest is not charged on the first day of the note.

Typically, the maker of a dishonored note fails to pay the note on the due date. A company that holds a dishonored note transfers the face amount of the note plus any interest due back to an accounts receivable account. Interest revenue is not dependent on receiving the interest at this point.

Cash received will include the maturity value of the note.

Learning Objective 6.

3. Journalize the adjusting entry to record the accrued interest on Notes (5) and (6) on December 31.

4. Journalize the entries to record the receipt of the amounts due on Notes (5) and (6) in January. If an amount box does not require an entry, leave it blank or enter "0".

Feedback

Count the number of days in each month until the total number of days is reached for the term of the note and this will be the due date. Interest is not charged on the first day of the note.

Typically, the maker of a dishonored note fails to pay the note on the due date. A company that holds a dishonored note transfers the face amount of the note plus any interest due back to an accounts receivable account. Interest revenue is not dependent on receiving the interest at this point.

Cash received will include the maturity value of the note.

Learning Objective 6.

In recent times, with mortgage rates at low levels, financial institutions have had to provide more customer convenience. One of the innovations offered by Coastal National Bank and Trust is online entry of mortgage applications. Listed below are the times, in minutes, for eight customers to complete the application process for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage and the times for nine customers to complete an application for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

State the decision rule. Use the 0.05 significance level. (Negative amounts should be indicated by a minus sign. Round your answer to 3 decimal places.)

H₀: The distributions are the same.
H₁: The 30-year distribution is smaller or to the left.

Complete the following table. (Round your answer to 1 decimal places.)

What is the Wilcoxon rank-sum test value, at the 0.05 significance level? (Round your answer to 2 decimal places.)

At the 0.05 significance level, is it reasonable to conclude that it takes less time for those customers applying for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage?

2. As an investment manager, you frequently make decisions about investing in stocks versus other types of investments, and about types of stocks to purchase.

1. You have noticed that investors tend to invest more heavily in stocks after interest rates have declined. You are considering this strategy as well. Is it rational to invest more heavily in stocks once interest rates have declined? 3 marks       

2. Assume that you are about to select a specific stock that will perform well in response to an expected runup in the stock market. You are very confident that the stock market will perform well in the near future. Recently, a friend recommended that you consider purchasing stock of a specific firm because it had decent earnings over the last few years, it has a low beta (reflecting a low degree of systematic risk), and its beta is expected to remain low. You normally rely on beta as a measurement of a firm’s systematic risk. Should you seriously consider buying that stock? Explain. 3 marks

3. You are considering an investment in an initial public offering (IPO) by Arunaxmi Co., which has performed very well recently, according to its financial statements. The firm will use some of the proceeds from selling stock to pay off some of its bank loans. How can you apply stock valuation models to estimate this firm’s value, when its stock was not publicly traded? Once you estimate the value of the firm, how can you use this information to determine whether to invest in it? What are some limitations involved in estimating the value of this firm?4 marks

Test the hypotheses that 1) systolic pressure [and 2) diastolic pressure, for practice] differs between men and women, with an α of 0.05 for both. What test would be most appropriate and why? Are the results significant? State your conclusions.

Concrete Consulting Co. has the following accounts in its ledger: Cash; Accounts Receivable; Supplies; Office Equipment; Accounts Payable; Jason Payne, Capital; Jason Payne, Drawing; Fees Earned; Rent Expense; Advertising Expense; Utilities Expense; Miscellaneous Expense.

Journalize the above selected transactions for October 2019 in a two-column journal. Refer to the Chart of Accounts for exact wording of account titles.

To Savor or to Groupon?

Mr. Chang, the owner of Enter the Dragon, a high-end Asian restaurant in Chicago, was puzzled by the choices put before him by the Groupon sales representative. He could offer a daily deal at Groupon (a $60 coupon for $30) that would be seen by hundreds of thousands of Groupon subscribers in the Chicago region, or he could offer a more tailored discount at Savored, a restaurant reservation site also owned by Groupon. Business had been slow lately, especially during weeknights, and Mr. Chang wanted to spur demand. He wanted to make sure, however, that he did so in a way that actually increased profits. He estimated that demand on weeknights was normally distributed, with a mean of 60 and a standard deviation of 30. Given a capacity of 100 and only a single seating per table per night, there were empty tables on many nights.

Groupon and the Daily Deal

Launched in 2008, Groupon expanded rapidly on the basis of its daily deals. The daily deal amounted to a 50 to 70 percent discount coupon for a product or service offered by a local business. The deal was broadcast by Groupon to its subscribers; if the number of buyers exceeded a threshold, the deal was finalized and the company shared about half the revenues with the local business while keeping the rest as its commission. The local business thus received about 20 to 25 cents on the dollar of retail value. Customers who purchased a coupon using the daily deal then contacted the local business for their product or service. At restaurants like Enter the Dragon, Groupon buyers tended to get their reservations as soon as they purchased their coupon, which was well before regular customers tried to get their reservations. The popularity of the daily deal among subscribers led to rapid growth at Groupon. After rejecting a $6 billion offer from Google, the company went public in 2011. Its stock has had a turbulent journey since then. After opening at $25, the stock hit a low of $4 by the end of 2012 before recovering to $10 by early 2014. The drop in price could be attributed in part to the higher marketing costs and the negative publicity from some retailers who had used the daily deal. Some complained that “the financials just can’t work,”2 whereas others called Groupon the “worst marketing ever.” Retailers complained that while Groupon brought in new customers, the margins were terrible because the 20 to 25 cents on the dollar recovered from a Groupon deal was much lower than the revenue the new customers provided. A very popular blog post by Jay Goltz on the New York Times3 site offered retailers a way to evaluate the benefit of the daily deal. He suggested that retailers think of Groupon as advertising. Instead of writing a check to the advertising agency, retailers using the daily deal were choosing to lose money on sales. Thus, the only calculation that mattered was the cost per new customer acquired from a daily deal. The blog post suggested the following eight key metrics to decide whether the daily deal was cost effective advertising:

1. Incremental cost of sales

2. Size of the average sale

3. Percentage of coupons redeemed

4. Percentage of coupons purchased by current customers

5. Number of coupons purchased per customer

6. Percentage of new coupon customers who become regular customers

7. Value of all Groupon subscribers seeing the daily deal

8. Current cost to acquire new customer through advertising

The value of the daily deal depended on these numbers. In an example described on the blog, Mr. Goltz focused on a restaurant that sold 3,000 coupons with a face value of $75 for $35 (the restaurant received only $17.50, with Groupon keeping the rest as commission). He assumed that the restaurant spent 40 percent (of normal revenue, not discounted revenue) in incremental cost; customers spent, on average, $85 ($10 more than the coupon); only 85 percent of the coupons were redeemed; 40 percent of the coupons were purchased by current customers; two coupons were purchased per customer; and about 10 percent of the new customers came back to the restaurant. In this case, the restaurant received a check of $52,500 (= 3000 * 17.50) from Groupon and additional revenues of $25,500 (= 3000 * 0.85 * 10) because the customers who came to the restaurant spent $10 more than the face value of the coupon. The incremental cost of serving these customers was $86,700 (= 3000 * 0.85 * 85 * 0.40). The restaurant thus lost $8,700 on this deal. If viewed as advertising expense, it was necessary to evaluate the number of new repeat customers that the deal brought in. Given that 2,550 (= 3000 * 0.85) coupons were redeemed and each customer bought two coupons, the deal was used by a total of 1,275 customers. Given that 60 percent of these were new customers, the deal brought 765 (= 1275 * 0.6) new customers to the restaurant. If 10 percent of them would return, the deal effectively brought in 76 new repeat customers. The restaurant then had to decide whether spending $8,700 to bring in 76 new repeat customers was more effective than other forms of advertising.

Savored and Restaurant Discounts

Groupon acquired Savored, a restaurant reservation engine, in September 2012. Savored offered discounts of up to 40 percent at upscale restaurants as long as customers made the reservations online in advance. Restaurants could vary the discount offered by time of day and day of week, with larger discounts for less popular times. Restaurants could

also vary the number of tables available at the discount price. Savored suggested times when discounts should be offered after studying a restaurant’s traffic patterns. For example, all Saturday night slots at the Capital Grille on Wall Street were discounted because it attracted a workweek crowd, whereas the Fatty Crab in the West Village in Manhattan offered only a Saturday night discount at 11 p.m.4 Savored had helped restaurants manage their idle capacity effectively. Le Cirque, an upscale Manhattan restaurant, had eliminated its cheaper pre-theater menu because Savored reservations filled those slots.

Study Questions

Use the spreadsheet Chapter16-Groupon for any supporting analysis.

1. Assume a variable cost of $10 per table and an average spending of $60 per table. With the daily deal ($60 for $30 coupon), Groupon provides Mr. Chang with a revenue of $15 per table. The analysis provided in the New York Times blog indicates that Mr. Chang makes money ($5 per table) through the daily deal (rather than incurring advertising expense). Do you think the analysis has included all aspects that need to be considered? Should Mr. Chang go ahead with the daily deal given that he can advertise while making a little bit of money per coupon?

2. With Savored, Mr. Chang can limit the number of tables he allows for the discount price. Assuming he makes the same revenue with Savored per discounted table as the daily deal ($15), do you think the ability to limit the number of tables at discount has any advantages? Would you prefer to use Savored or the daily deal?

3. Would you prefer to use Savored or the daily deal? Why?