Rita’s hiring! With her business really starting to take off, Rita realised she could no longer do everything herself and had recently hired a social media and sales analyst (Peggy), a pastry chef (Florence) and a sous chef (Marco), as well as a bookkeeper (Glenn).  It wasn’t long before Rita realised that managing staff wasn’t as easy as she thought it was going to be. Peggy was concerned that her performance goals were very vague and that the goalposts seemed to be continuously moving, making it almost impossible for her to track her progress. Her main job was to manage Rita’s Muffins' social media accounts (mainly Instagram and Facebook) and to drive sales.  There was some dispute about whether her target should be measured by “followed” links to Rita’s Muffins landing page or actual sales generated from a “followed” link. So the precise calculation hadn’t been locked down. Also, every time the business beat target, the targets would be increased, which Peggy didn’t think was very fair. They also seemed ridiculously ambitious, or in her words, “totally unachievable.” Glenn’s previous role was with a large corporate where the financial cycles were, by and large, automated. It was quite a shock coming to such a manual operation as Rita’s Muffins. He passed his bookkeeping exams in the 1980s, so he could remember very little about how to set up payroll from scratch. The result was that Peggy didn’t get paid, Florence got paid twice in the same cycle, and Marco was taxed at twice the normal rate. All three said they were going to quit if it wasn’t sorted by the next pay period.Despite these issues, Rita’s muffin baking business appears to be doing increasingly well. Every week, she’s baking at least 10% more muffins than the previous week. Therefore, she was somewhat shocked when her bookkeeper Glenn told her that if things didn’t improve quickly, they might not be able to make payroll next month. When she asked what was causing the cashflow squeeze, all Glenn was able to say was that the forecast gross profit margin was 67%, but they were only hitting 58%. He then shrugged his shoulders and said: “I’m not sure why, we costed the muffins accurately enough and then priced for a 67% gross profit margin.”Rita started by asking Florence and Marco what they thought the problem was. Florence reminded Rita that their policy was to only sell muffins baked within the last 24 hours and give any leftovers to the shelter. She also mentioned that they always seemed to send a lot of muffins to the local homeless shelter on Sundays and Mondays. Rita checked the production records, and they seemed to be baking the right amount on Sundays and Mondays. Further, the problem only seemed to have started when they changed from a “bake-to-order” system to a “bake-to-forecast” system.One other thing Rita noticed while checking the production records was that while the number of muffins baked on Sundays and Mondays matched the forecast, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, they seemed to be baking 20% more muffins than forecast. However, they were only donating a handful of muffins to the shelter. Flag question: Question 1Question 1Tips1 ptsHow could Rita have potentially avoided the staff threatening to quit?

How could Rita have potentially avoided the staff threatening to quit?

Rita was lying awake at night. The words of one of her friends, who’d been at Rita’s apartment for afternoon tea, were ringing in her ears: “These muffins are so good. You should think about selling them!”  The following morning, Rita posted an ad on her local Facebook group and waited for the orders to come in. By the end of the week, words were getting around. Friends would message her on all Rita’s different socials with orders, some would stop her in the street, and even people she’d never met would overhear her talking on the bus and ask her to take an order. Unfortunately, she was losing track of what to deliver to who. She’d been baking almost non-stop, and when she wasn’t baking, she was at the supermarket buying ingredients. The problem was that she had no idea whether she was making any money.

The spreadsheet that James had developed for Rita was certainly helping. However, Rita had noticed a few “glitches”. The effect of these glitches had really come to light this week. Rita’s business was growing, and it was time for her to open a business bank account. The bank asked her a lot of questions about her business that she wasn’t too sure about. For example, she wasn’t sure what to enter when the bank asked her for revenue projections. The office where she worked had asked her to provide 1 dozen blueberry muffins a day for the next two months. However, she couldn’t recall the expected revenue from this order; she hadn’t bothered entering this into James’ spreadsheet as she’d made a note of it on her phone (and since she woke up late today and had to rush making that order before going to the bank, she has forgotten to bring her phone for her appointment in the bank!)    Further, the bank had asked about her balance sheet. She hadn’t thought about this. She’d borrowed a KitchenAid mixer from her best friend Daisy but wasn’t sure whether this was a gift, or she’d have to give it back. The oven was in the share house she lived in, should that be considered hers? Also, in between saving her muffins from burning and running to the store to get that extra block of butter, she didn’t have time to do a stock take. Most of the ingredients were in the pantry at her share house, and she had noticed that some had gone missing when they had a housewarming party, along with some of her baking utensils. She’d also bought frozen blueberries and raspberries in bulk and kept them in her parent’s freezer. She wasn’t sure how many of them there were left as she’d said it was OK for her parents to take some when they needed them.Review the sample for Rita’s orders spreadsheet that James had developed:

Rita is an entrepreneur who started her own line of beauty products. She has many things to think about when making, selling and marketing the product. What is she doing when she is considering all of these important questions about her product line?A.Making more productsB.Managing quality in a value chainC.Technology improvementsD.Lean management

While Rita knew Glenn’s experience did not fit neatly with her business’ needs, she could not find any replacement. Describe some additional controls Rita should consider implementing to ensure that the financial and managerial reports he produced are valid, accurate and complete.