Assume today is March 16, 2016. Natasha Kingery is 30 years old and has a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science.
She is currently employed as a Tier 2 field service representative for a telephony corporation located in Seattle,
Washington, and earns $38,000 a year that she anticipates will grow at 3% per year. Natasha hopes to retire at age 65 and
has just begun to think about the future.
Natasha has $75,000 that she recently inherited from her aunt. She invested this money in 30-year Treasury Bonds. She is
considering whether she should further her education and would use her inheritance to pay for it.
She has investigated a couple of options and is asking for your help as a financial planning intern to determine the financial
consequences associated with each option. Natasha has already been accepted to both of these programs, and could start
either one soon.
One alternative that Natasha is considering is attaining a certification in network design. This certification would
automatically promote her to a Tier 3 field service representative in her company. The base salary for a Tier 3
representative is $10,000 more than what she currently earns and she anticipates that this salary differential will grow at a
rate of 3% a year as long as she keeps working. The certification program requires the completion of 20 Web- based courses
and a score of 80% or better on an exam at the end of the course work. She has learned that the average amount of time
necessary to finish the program is one year. The total cost of the program is $5000, due when she enrolls in the program.
Because she will do all the work for the certification on her own time, Natasha does not expect to lose any income during
the certification.
Another option is going back to school for an MBA degree. With an MBA degree, Natasha expects to be promoted to a
managerial position in her current firm. The managerial position pays $20,000 a year more than her current position. She
expects that this salary differential will also grow at a rate of 3% per year for as long as she keeps working. The evening
program, which will take three years to complete, costs $25,000 per year, due at the beginning of each of her three years in
school. Because she will attend classes in the evening, Natasha doesn’t expect to lose any income while she is earning her
MBA if she chooses to undertake the MBA.
1. Determine the interest rate she is currently earning on her inheritance by going to Yahoo! Finance
(http://finance.yahoo.com) and typing the word “Treasury” in the search field and picking the 30 year yield
(ticker: ^TYX) off the dynamic menu that appears. Then go to “Historical Prices” (located in the left column) and
enter the appropriate date, March 16, 2016 to obtain the closing yield or interest rate that she is earning. Use this
interest rate as the discount rate for the remainder of this problem.
2. Create a timeline in Excel for her current situation, as well as the certification program and MBA degree options,
using the following assumptions:
Salaries for the year are paid only once, at the end of the year.
The salary increase becomes effective immediately upon graduating from the MBA program or being certified.
That is, because the increases become effective immediately but salaries are paid at the end of the year, the first
salary increase will be paid exactly one year after graduation or certification.
3. Calculate the present value of the salary differential for completing the certification program. Subtract the cost of
the program to get the NPV of undertaking the certification program.
4. Calculate the present value of the salary differential for completing the MBA degree. Calculate the present value of
the cost of the MBA program. Based on your calculations, determine the NPV of undertaking the MBA.
5. Based on your answers to Questions 3 and 4, what advice would you give to Natasha? What if the two programs
are mutually exclusive? That is, if Natasha undertakes one of the programs there is no further benefit to
undertaking the other program. Would your advice be different?

Section 2 - CASE ANALYSIS INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Read the case below carefully and answer ALL the questions which follow.

2. Your answers may be entered using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet OR may be entered in a table format using Microsoft Word.

HEALTHY OPTIONS INC.

Healthy Options is a Pharmaceutical Company which is considering investing in a new production line of portable electrocardiogram (ECG) machines for its clients who suffer from cardiovascular diseases. The company has to invest in equipment which costs $2,500,000 and falls within a MARCS depreciation of 5 years, and is expected to have a scrap value of $200,000 at the end of the project. Other than the equipment, the company needs to increase its cash and cash equivalents by $100,000, increase the level of inventory by $30,000, increase accounts receivable by $250,000 and increase accounts payable by $50,000 at the beginning of the project. Healthy Options expects the project to have a life of five years. The company would have to pay for transportation and installation of the equipment which has an invoice price of $450,000.

The company has already invested $75,000 in Research and Development and therefore expects a positive impact on the demand for the new product line. Expected annual sales for the ECG machines in years one to three are $1,200,000, and $850,000 in the following two years. The variable costs of production are projected to be $267,000 per year in years one to three and $375,000 in years four and five. Fixed overhead is $180,000 per year over the life of the project.

The introduction of the new line of portable ECG machines will cause a net decrease of $50,000 in profit contribution after taxes, due to a decrease in sales of the other lines of tester machines produced by the company. By investing in the new product line Healthy Options would have to use a packaging machine which the company already has and which will be sold at the end of the project for $350,000 after-tax in the equipment market.

The company’s financial analyst has advised Healthy Options to use the weighted average cost of capital as the appropriate discount rate to evaluate the project. Information about the company’s sources of financing is provided below:

• The company will contract a new loan in the sum of $2,000,000 that is secured by machinery and the loan has an interest rate of 6 percent. Healthy Options has also issued 4,000 new bond issues with an 8 percent coupon, paid semiannually, and which matures in 10 years. The bonds were sold at par, and incurred floatation cost of 2 percent per issue. • The company’s preferred stock pays an annual dividend of 4.5 percent and is currently selling for $60, and there are 100,000 shares outstanding.

• There are 300,000 shares of common stock outstanding, and they are currently selling for $21 each. The beta on these shares is 0.95.

Other relevant information about the company follows: The 20-year Treasury Bond rate is currently 4.5 percent and you have estimated market-risk premium to be 6.75 percent using the returns on stocks and Treasury Bonds from 2010 to 2019. Healthy Options has a marginal tax rate of 25 percent. As a recent graduate of the UWIOC, The General Manager of the company has hired you to work alongside the Financial Controller of the company to help determine whether the company should invest in the new product line. He has provided you with the following questions to guide you in your assessment of the project and to present your findings to the Company.

REQUIRED:

7. Determine the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for Healthy Options.

8. Calculate the initial investment cash-flows.

9. Calculate the after-tax operating cash-flows.

10. Determine the tax on salvage value of the equipment, then show the terminal year cash-flows.

11. Identify three (3) relevant cash flows which were mentioned in the case and how they should be treated in the capital budgeting decision.

12. Taking into consideration all the information given, determine the Net Present Value of the project and advise the company on whether to invest in the new line of product. (Use your answer to Q7 rounded to the nearest whole in the calculations of the other questions where necessary

Five Sources of Power: Legitimate, Reward, Coercive, Referent, and Expertise

Read each of the five scenarios below and choose one of the five sources of power to resolve the challenge in each scenario and explain why that source is appropriate.

Scenario #1

Assume you are a supervisor of an IT department at a website hosting company. You want your staff to complete a large project within the next two months. Usually such a project would take about three months to accomplish. To persuade your staff to rise to this challenge, you offer each of them three additional paid vacation days. Your staff enjoys taking three-day weekends, so the incentive should motivate them to finish the project within the shorter time frame.

As the supervisor, you are using ________________    power to motivate your staff.

Reason(s) for Choice:

Scenario #2

Assume you work at a local retail store. As a part-time employee working your way through college,

You are not interested in becoming a manager. Even so, sometimes you wish you were in charge. Just yesterday, your boss asked if you would be willing to work two extra days per week for a month. After you explained that you could work only your usual three days per week due to college and other commitments, your boss threatened to cut your hours indefinitely. Given how much you need the money, you grudgingly agreed to work the two extra days per week.

Your manager is using __________________ power to persuade you to work the two extra days.

Reason(s) for Choice:

Scenario #3

Assume you were recently promoted to assistant manager of the bank in your hometown. You are friends with the employees that now report to you. You notice that they still treat you like a buddy and do not seem to respect you in your new role. You decide that it will be in everyone’s best interest if you assert yourself by reminding them that you are now their manager (and not their buddy). This is a challenging transition, but you feel the need to have their respect now that you are the manager.

You are using __________________ power to encourage employees to respect you in your new role.

Reason(s) for Choice:

Scenario #4

Assume you are an experienced marketer of outdoor adventure trips. You recently changed jobs. While working for your previous employer, Outdoor Adventures, you created several successful marketing programs that resulted in a 30% increase in sales over a three-year period. Now that you recently joined Eco Tours & Adventures, none of your co-workers know the extent of your marketing knowledge. Your goal is to increase your power within the company. You decide to develop a really impactful and creative marketing campaign unlike any used by Eco Tours in the past.

You are using _________________ power to increase your influence at Eco Tours & Adventures.

Reason(s) for Choice:

Scenario #5

Assume you are a salesperson and just found out that your organization’s largest client is thinking about moving its business to one of your competitors. If this happens, you will lose about 30% of your commission this year, not to mention the loss of revenue to your company. You decide to rush over to see your contact at the client company. You spend two hours listening to why the client might leave and ask repeatedly what your company can do to make things right. You are nervous, but still use your charm and sense of humor to convince your contact that you and your company deserve one more chance. Your contact agrees to get you a meeting with the CEO and to put in a good word for your company. She says she is doing this because she likes you professionally.

You are using ________________ power to convince your contact that you deserve another chance.

Reason(s) for Choice:

The following selected accounts and their current balances appear in the ledger of Druid Hills Co. for the fiscal year ended May 31, 20Y8:

Labels and Amount Descriptions

Income Statement

1. Prepare a multiple-step income statement. Be sure to complete the statement heading. Refer to the account names in the instructions and the lists of Labels and Amount Descriptions for the exact wording of text entries. Enter amounts as positive numbers unless the amount is a calculation that results in a negative amount. For example: Net loss should be negative. Expenses should be positive. A colon (:) will automatically appear if it is required.

Statement of Owner’s Equity

2. Prepare a statement of owner’s equity. Be sure to complete the statement heading. Refer to the lists of Labels and Amount Descriptions for the exact wording of text entries. Enter amounts that represent reduction as negative numbers using a minus sign.

Balance Sheet

3. Prepare a balance sheet, assuming that the current portion of the note payable is $53,200. Be sure to complete the statement heading. Refer to the account names in the instructions and the lists of Labels and Amount Descriptions for the exact wording of text entries. Order the Property, Plant & Equipment accounts in the order shown on the Instructions page. You will not need to enter colons (:) or the word "Less" on the balance sheet; they will automatically insert where necessary. Enter all amounts as positive numbers.

Final Questions

4. How multiple-step and single-step income statements differ.

Which type of income statement shows intermediate balances?

Single-step

Multiple-step

Serenity Spa Vacations Inc. (SSV) is a company that specializes in organizing tours of luxury health and wellness spas around the world. During the first four years of its business, SSV experienced modest growth. Just over a year ago, however, the company was featured in an exclusive travel magazine. This, coupled with excellent web reviews and favourable word of mouth, fuelled a period of exponential growth that continues to this day. As there are a number of other well-established companies that offer similar services, SSV’s management knows that to continue its success, it must expand its loyal customer base by providing exemplary service and tours while controlling costs. SSV’s accounting information system (AIS) currently consists of a purchased accounting software package that has only basic features and cannot be upgraded. It is supplemented by various spreadsheets used to track important information, including payroll, spa availability, bookings in progress, client preferences, and customer ratings of the wellness packages sold. SSV’s vice-president of operations understands that the company’s current AIS is woefully inadequate and must be replaced with one that permits management to better direct the organization’s activities. The vice-president has requested you, CPA, the company’s chief financial officer, investigate the options that are available and make a recommendation as to how to proceed. The vice-president stated that the criteria Intermediate Financial Reporting 1 Project 1 6 / 6 considered should include cost, reliability, ability to accommodate continuing growth, reducing duplicative data entry, functionality, and compatibility with online purchases by customers. You have eight people working for you in the accounting department in two locations and as such know that multi-user capabilities over a networked system are a must. You are well aware of the inadequacies of the current system and the issues they are causing, and have researched various possibilities. You have narrowed the choice down to three options as described below, all of which meet the criteria of compatibility, multi-user functionality, network capability, and reducing duplicative data entry. • Commercial package in the cloud (CPC) — SSV can arrange to access a widely used commercial software package for $2,750 per month based on an 18-month rental agreement. Your research suggests that the software package is very reliable, represents a significant improvement over SSV’s exiting AIS, and includes 100% of the identified “must haves” and about 60% of SSV’s “nice to haves.” Arranging access and uploading existing data take about two weeks. When a cloud-computing solution is used, expanding capacity is easily arranged at an additional cost. Moreover, as the host regularly upgrades the system on an ongoing basis, potential obsolescence isn’t a major factor. • Commercial package purchased (CPP) — SSV can purchase the software package described above for $90,000. Installation of the program and conversion of the existing program will take about six weeks. The expected useful life of the new software is four years. Expanding capacity at a later date is easily accommodated by adding an additional module at a relatively nominal cost. • Custom-built package (CBP) — You received two quotes from software engineers to custom build a system that meets all of SSV’s identified needs. The first engineer, who is very well known and has an excellent track record in building similar systems, quoted a price of $150,000. She suggests that the system will take about one year to build and install. The second engineer, who is new to the industry, promises delivery in six months at a firm cost of $80,000. The expected useful life of the custom-built software is four years. The system can be expanded at a later date; however, the expansion would have to be a customized solution, designed by a software engineer, at a cost that will likely be substantively higher than acquiring additional capacity for the CPP. Required: Use the CPA Way to assess this situation and make a recommendation to the vicepresident of operations of SSV.

INSTRUCTIONS for the Case Analysis:

1. Read the case below and answer ALL the questions which follow.

2. Your answers may be entered using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet OR may be entered in a table format using Microsoft Word.

HEALTHY OPTIONS INC.

Healthy Options is a Pharmaceutical Company which is considering investing in a new production line of portable electrocardiogram (ECG) machines for its clients who suffer from cardiovascular diseases. The company has to invest in equipment which costs $2,500,000 and falls within a MARCS depreciation of 5 years, and is expected to have a scrap value of $200,000 at the end of the project. Other than the equipment, the company needs to increase its cash and cash equivalents by $100,000, increase the level of inventory by $30,000, increase accounts receivable by $250,000 and increase accounts payable by $50,000 at the beginning of the project. Healthy Options expects the project to have a life of five years. The company would have to pay for transportation and installation of the equipment which has an invoice price of $450,000.

The company has already invested $75,000 in Research and Development and therefore expects a positive impact on the demand for the new product line. Expected annual sales for the ECG machines in years one to three are $1,200,000, and $850,000 in the following two years. The variable costs of production are projected to be $267,000 per year in years one to three and $375,000 in years four and five. Fixed overhead is $180,000 per year over the life of the project.

The introduction of the new line of portable ECG machines will cause a net decrease of $50,000 in profit contribution after taxes, due to a decrease in sales of the other lines of tester machines produced by the company. By investing in the new product line Healthy Options would have to use a packaging machine which the company already has and which will be sold at the end of the project for $350,000 after-tax in the equipment market.

The company’s financial analyst has advised Healthy Options to use the weighted average cost of capital as the appropriate discount rate to evaluate the project. Information about the company’s sources of financing is provided below:

• The company will contract a new loan in the sum of $2,000,000 that is secured by machinery and the loan has an interest rate of 6 percent. Healthy Options has also issued 4,000 new bond issues with an 8 percent coupon, paid semiannually, and which matures in 10 years. The bonds were sold at par, and incurred floatation cost of 2 percent per issue.

• The company’s preferred stock pays an annual dividend of 4.5 percent and is currently selling for $60, and there are 100,000 shares outstanding.

• There are 300,000 million shares of common stock outstanding, and they are currently selling for $21 each. The beta on these shares is 0.95. Other relevant information about the company follows:

The 20-year Treasury Bond rate is currently 4.5 percent and you have estimated market-risk premium to be 6.75 percent using the returns on stocks and Treasury Bonds from 2010 to 2019. Healthy Options has a marginal tax rate of 25 percent.

As a recent graduate of the UWIOC, The General Manager of the company has hired you to work alongside the Financial Controller of the company to help determine whether the company should invest in the new product line. He has provided you with the following questions to guide you in your assessment of the project and to present your findings to the Company.

REQUIRED:

7. Determine the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for Healthy Options.

8. Calculate the initial investment cash-flows.

9. Calculate the after-tax operating cash-flows.

10. Determine the tax on salvage value of the equipment, then show the terminal year cash-flows.

11. Identify three (3) relevant cash flows which were mentioned in the case and how they should be treated in the capital budgeting decision.

12. Taking into consideration all the information given, determine the Net Present Value of the project and advise the company on whether to invest in the new line of product.

Use Python to Complete the following on a single text file and submit your code and your output as separate documents. For each problem create the necessary list objects and write code to perform the following examples:

Sum all the items in a list.

Multiply all the items in a list.

Get the largest number from a list.

Get the smallest number from a list.

Remove duplicates from a list.

Check a list is empty or not.

Clone or copy a list.

Find the list of words that are longer than n from a given list of words.

Take two lists and returns True if they have at least one common member.

Print a specified list after removing the 0th, 4th and 5th elements.
Sample List: ['Red', 'Green', 'White', 'Black', 'Pink', 'Yellow']
Expected Output: ['Green', 'White', 'Black']

Print the numbers of a specified list after removing even numbers from it.

Shuffle and print a specified list.

Get the difference between the two lists.

Convert a list of characters into a string.

Find the index of an item in a specified list.

Append a list to the second list.

Select an item randomly from a list.

Find the second smallest number in a list.

Find the second largest number in a list.

Get unique values from a list.

Get the frequency of the elements in a list.

Count the number of elements in a list within a specified range.

Check whether a list contains a sub list.

Create a list by concatenating a given list which range goes from 1 to n.
Sample list : ['p', 'q'], n = 5
Sample Output : ['p1', 'q1', 'p2', 'q2', 'p3', 'q3', 'p4', 'q4', 'p5', 'q5']

Find common items from two lists.

Change the position of every n-th value with the (n+1)th in a list.
Sample list: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Expected Output: [1, 0, 3, 2, 5, 4]

Convert a list of multiple integers into a single integer.
Sample list: [11, 33, 50]
Expected Output: 113350

Split a list based on the first character of a word.

Select the odd items of a list.

Insert an element before each element of a list.

Print all elements of a nested lists (each list on a new line) using the print() function.

Split a list every Nth element.
Sample list: ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n']
Expected Output: [['a', 'd', 'g', 'j', 'm'], ['b', 'e', 'h', 'k', 'n'], ['c', 'f', 'i', 'l']]

Create a list with infinite elements.

Concatenate elements of a list.

Convert a string to a list.

Replace the last element in a list with another list.
Sample data : [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10], [2, 4, 6, 8]
Expected Output: [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 2, 4, 6, 8]

Check if the n-th element exists in a given list.

Find a tuple with the smallest second index value from a list of tuples.

Insert a given string at the beginning of all items in a list.
Sample list: [1,2,3,4], string: emp
Expected output: ['emp1', 'emp2', 'emp3', 'emp4']

Find the list in a list of lists whose sum of elements is the highest.
Sample lists: [1,2,3], [4,5,6], [10,11,12], [7,8,9]
Expected Output: [10, 11, 12]

Find all the values in a list are greater than a specified number.

Extend a list without append.
Sample data: [10, 20, 30]
[40, 50, 60]
Expected output: [40, 50, 60, 10, 20, 30]

Remove duplicates from a list of lists.
Sample list : [[10, 20], [40], [30, 56, 25], [10, 20], [33], [40]]
New List : [[10, 20], [30, 56, 25], [33], [40]]

For each of the studies, please indicate the following:

1) Independent variable(s)

2) Number of IVs

3) The levels the independent variable(s)

4) Dependent variable

(for correlation, list all variables here)

5) Between (B/S) or within-subjects (W/S)?

6) What type of design is being used?

7) What is the appropriate statistic?

*If a question isn’t applicable to a particular design, please note that as well

Study1: A team of cognitive psychologists conducted a study on the effects of sleep deprivation on short-term memory decay. Forty-eight participants stayed in a lab for two days. Twenty-four of the participants are randomly assigned to a condition in which they are not permitted to sleep during that period. The other twenty-four are allowed to sleep whenever they want. At the end of the two days, the participants complete a task that involves reading a list of 20 words, then recalling as many words as possible.

Study2: A researcher examined the effect of different kinds of music on general math ability. Forty-eight participants were randomly assigned to do a series of math tasks under one of three conditions: 16 while listening to soft gentle music, 16 while listening to loud intense music, and 16 while in silence. The math quiz contained arithmetic, geometry, and word problems. There were 25 items that were 2 points each.

Study3: A health psychologist conducted a study on the how the number of hours a person exercised each week relates to the number of days being sick per year. Participants were randomly selected from the community and provided self-reports through a series of questions on the topics of interest.

Study4: A study was designed to test the effects of science fiction movies on participants' belief in the supernatural. A scale was designed to measure the degree that a participant believes in the supernatural on a 1-7 Likert Scale (high scores indicate high levels of belief). Fifty-seven participants, selected via random digit dialing (RDD) responded to the scale before and after watching Return of the Jedi, a popular science fiction movie.

Study5: A researcher at a drug treatment center wanted to determine the best combination of treatments that would lead to more substance free days. This researcher believed there were two key factors in helping drug addiction: type of treatment and type of counseling. The researcher was interested in either residential or outpatient treatment programs and either cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, or client-centered counseling approaches. As new clients enrolled at the center they were randomly assigned to one of six experimental groups. After 3 months of treatment, each client’s symptoms were measured.

Study6: An organizational psychologist is hired as a consultant by a person planning to open a coffee house for college students. The coffee house owner wants to know if her customers will drink more coffee depending on the ambience of the coffee house. To test this, the psychologist sets up three similar rooms, each with its own theme (Tropical; Old Library; or New York Café ) then arranges to have thirty students spend an afternoon in each room while being allowed to drink all the coffee they like. (The order in which they sit in the rooms is counterbalanced.) The amount each participant drinks is recorded for each of the three themes.

Study7: A manager at a retail store in the mall wants to increase profit. The manager wants to see if the store’s layout (one main circular path vs. a grid system of paths) influences how much money is spent depending on whether there is a sale. The belief is that when there is a sale customers like a grid layout, while customers prefer a circular layout when there is no sale. Over two days the manager alternates the store layout, and has the same group of customers come each day. Based on random assignment, half of the customers are told there is a sale (20 % will be taken off the final purchases), while the other half is told there is no sale. At the end of each day, the manager calculates the profit.

Purpose of Assignment

The purpose of the assignment is to develop students' abilities in using data sets to apply the concepts of sampling distributions and confidence intervals to make management decisions.

Assignment Steps

Resources: Microsoft Excel®, The Payment Time Case Study, The Payment Time Case Data Set

Review the Payment Time Case Study and Data Set.

Develop a 700-word report including the following calculations and using the information to determine whether the new billing system has reduced the mean bill payment time:

• Assuming the standard deviation of the payment times for all payments is 4.2 days, construct a 95% confidence interval estimate to determine whether the new billing system was effective. State the interpretation of 95% confidence interval and state whether or not the billing system was effective.
• Using the 95% confidence interval, can we be 95% confident that µ ≤ 19.5 days?
• Using the 99% confidence interval, can we be 99% confident that µ ≤ 19.5 days?
• If the population mean payment time is 19.5 days, what is the probability of observing a sample mean payment time of 65 invoices less than or equal to 18.1077 days?

Case Study – Payment Time Case Study

Major consulting firms such as Accenture, Ernst & Young Consulting, and Deloitte & Touche Consulting employ statistical analysis to assess the effectiveness of the systems they design for their customers. In this case, a consulting firm has developed an electronic billing system for a Stockton, CA, trucking company. The system sends invoices electronically to each customer’s computer and allows customers to easily check and correct errors. It is hoped the new billing system will substantially reduce the amount of time it takes customers to make payments. Typical payment times—measured from the date on an invoice to the date payment is received—using the trucking company’s old billing system had been 39 days or more. This exceeded the industry standard payment time of 30 days.

The new billing system does not automatically compute the payment time for each invoice because there is no continuing need for this information. The management consulting firm believes the new system will reduce the mean bill payment time by more than 50 percent. The mean payment time using the old billing system was approximately equal to, but no less than, 39 days. Therefore, if µ denotes the new mean payment time, the consulting firm believes that µ will be less than 19.5 days. Therefore, to assess the system’s effectiveness (whether µ < 19.5 days), the consulting firm selects a random sample of 65 invoices from the 7,823 invoices processed during the first three months of the new system’s operation. Whereas this is the first time the consulting company has installed an electronic billing system in a trucking company, the firm has installed electronic billing systems in other types of companies.

Analysis of results from these other companies show, although the population mean payment time varies from company to company, the population standard deviation of payment times is the same for different companies and equals 4.2 days. The payment times for the 65 sample invoices are manually determined and are given in the Excel^® spreadsheet named “The Payment Time Case”. If this sample can be used to establish that new billing system substantially reduces payment times, the consulting firm plans to market the system to other trucking firms.

I do not need help with the paper. I need to understand the math.