HOW TO WRITE AN ANALYTICAL REPORT TEAM HOMEWORK EXERCISE 30 POINTS POSSIBLE Read

Question

HOW TO WRITE AN ANALYTICAL REPORT

TEAM HOMEWORK EXERCISE

30 POINTS POSSIBLE

Read the following case. Then, answer the questions below to begin the report writing process.

(Note: The case below is taken from Basic Business Communication by R. Lesikar, 5th ed., Irwin.)

You don’t like to do such things, but you must report one of your subordinates for cheating on his expense report claim submissions. In fact, you will recommend his discharge.

One of your duties as sales manager of the Hi-Tech Corporation is to review and approve the expense vouchers of your salespeople. For the past two months you have been concerned about the expenses claimed by Marcus A. Weise. They have been high—about 30 percent above the norm. You talked to Marcus about the matter three times. He took offense each time, saying that his expenses were legitimate and noting that he had the receipts required (he did.) So each time you took no action and asked only that he watch his expenses in the future.

However, the Friday before last you made a startling observation. You were having dinner at the exclusive Bilbo Restaurant when you caught a glimpse of Marcus, his wife, and his two teenage children being escorted to a dining room at the rear of the restaurant. (You don’t think he saw you.)

You thought nothing of the incident until you reviewed Weise’s expense report claims at the end of the next week. Weise had submitted a receipt for $161.80 from Bilbo’s restaurant, and it was for the night you saw him. On the voucher he had noted that this claim was for entertaining Paul Probst, Patricia Krahl, and Denton Parr of the Waymond-Mills Manufacturing Company (one of his good customers). After contacting each of these individuals, you discovered your suspicion of fraud was correct.

Thus, you wondered how often this had happened. Checking past records, you found that Weise had submitted two other vouchers for Friday night entertainment of customers. As Friday night is not a normal time for customer entertaining, you became suspicious. On one of the vouchers you noticed that Cyrus S. Sanders, whom you knew from your days of field selling, was named as one of the customers. You telephoned Cyrus who reported that Marcus had never entertained him, that he didn’t know Marcus, and that he no longer had any duties that would make him a subject of such entertainment.

After checking with those named on the other suspicious voucher, you confronted Weise with the evidence. At first, he denied any wrongdoing. Then, minutes later in the confrontation, he admitted his guilt and promised that it would never happen again. He even promised to pay back “every cent I owe.” However, employee theft is never tolerated.

Following company procedure, you will recommend to Gladys Jordan (vice president for sales) that Weise be fired. You will present your recommendation in a memorandum report, following the company’s standard practice of beginning such a report with your conclusion(s) and recommendation(s) and providing supporting facts and analyses. And yes, you will recommend that $509.40—the total amount of the vouchers that Weise admitted were fraudulent—be deducted from his final paycheck. While you have considered the voucher review process somewhat lax and in need of modification to avoid situations such as this, you will save that topic for discussion later on rather than as content for this report.

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The 5 questions listed in boldface are the ones used to help you organize your thoughts and plan your report. The statements in italics help to provide clarity when considering responses to the boldface questions.

1.What is the main purpose for writing this report?

What do you plan to accomplish? What problem(s) are you addressing/solving?

2.What content needs to be included in this report?

You will consider all content from the case, given your purpose for writing, when responding to this question. You may need (and are allowed) to create facts in your report provided they jibe with ones already given. Remember, all analytical reports contain Facts (and appropriate analysis of those facts.) Simply put, list the facts you will include.

Conclusion---What conclusion will your presentation and analysis of the facts lead to? Remember, you already know the entire situation but your reader does not, so you must prepare this content as a question, such that the report contains the answer to the question you state as part of your answer to item 2. For example, based on the presentation and analysis of facts, the question to be answered in a report about the results of a new ad campaign might be: Did the ad campaign appear to have an impact on sales?

Recommendation---Based on your conclusion(s) drawn, you must ask another question for this content. Following the previous example, the question to be answered here might be: What action(s) should be taken?

3.Will direct or indirect order be used to organize report content?

As stated in the case, Direct order will be used. See case attachment for Direct vs. Indirect order for analytical reports.

4.What content will be placed in the Introductory, Discussion, and Closing sections?

The content for this response has already been determined, for all you will do is take the list items from Question 2 above and organize them according to Introductory, Discussion, and Closing section content. If it’s not listed in No. 2 above, you should not list it as part of your answer to No. 4. In essence, you are organizing your previously identified content.

5.Will graphical display techniques be included? If so, which one(s) and why?

Based on your ebook readings and instructor-provided documents, determine whether a graphical display technique is appropriate---and if so, which one(s) and why? Then, create (if necessary) your graphical display technique(s) and include as part of your Discussion section content.

When you have successfully completed this 5-step planning process, you will use it to compose the first draft of your analytical memorandum report.

Explanation / Answer

1) What is the main purpose of writing this report:

Main purpose was to highlight a serious issue of employee theft by misusing expenses voucher for his own personal expenses. So the problem here is Expenses of sales person , being Sales manager all recipts are given to me and then refund their expenses , whatever they have incurred due to official puroses but it should be only official so when i noticed on of sales man expenses were increasing by approx 30% , so i doubted why it is increasing . So problem is increased expnses of a salesperson an that;s what will report include in it.

2)What contents need to be included :

It was started when i noticed that marcus expenses are increasing day by day and the average was 30% higher then other people . But when i asked him he said that claims are genuine and there are no personal expenses and evrytime he had that original bill with him so i was also confused that might be he is true and i am not thinking in correctway. All his bills were usually for customer's food bills of meetings and specialy for friday nights. last friday when i went to a restaurant with my family i also notcied marcus sitting with his family having dinner and i obviously took this as normal as everybody likes to come for dinner with their famly. but next week in office he gave me a bill of some amount of that hotel for the same friday night and name was mentioned of three customers as meeting food expenses. I was sure these bills are not correct as he was there with his family so i called both of the customers and they said that they dont know him and even they didnt met him so i took out his previous bills and called two or three more customers just to re-confirm.

I got same answer of No from all the customers as they didnt even met him so i asked him to come on first attempt he didnt agreed but when i forced him he admitted his mistake and said will never repeat this again and will return all the money that he claimed as expenses so far. He requested me that will not repeat this again but this is not a small issue if i will let him go then others might also think of doing this so letting him stay in company is not at all possible.

According to me he should be terminated as employee theft is not at all tolerable and its not good as well as everybody will start taking there expenses as source of personal expenses to enjoy there life by providing fake bills and all. I have given all the relevant details his expenses and his acceptance . Therefore please issue notice for him regarding his termination so that everybody else can learn something as a lesson. I also want to make some changes in claims bills forms but will do it once we get some time to meet up.

3)What order will be used -

As stated direct order will be used in the report as if we will show the report in Indirect order then nodbody will understand what thet matter was , what was the conclusion and suggestions etc. so Direct order method is followed always. For example just like pictures if we will see ending in first half and then from starting in second half then we will leave the theater and go as we would not be able to understand what the picture is all about its starting and ending. So Direct method is always good or all reports to clearly define all the incidence , situations etc.

4)What content will be places in the introductory /Discussion and closing

-->In introduction we will explain the incident /issue we are going to talk about what was happened etc.

It was started when i noticed that marcus expenses are increasing day by day and the average was 30% higher then other people . But when i asked him he said that claims are genuine and there are no personal expenses and evrytime he had that original bill with him so i was also confused that might be he is true and i am not thinking in correctway. All his bills were usually for customer's food bills of meetings and specialy for friday nights.

--> In discussion all incidences are discussed and explaind as what did i noticed etc.

Last friday when i went to a restaurant with my family i also noticed marcus sitting with his family having dinner and i obviously took this as normal as everybody likes to come for dinner with their famly. but next week in office he gave me a bill of some amount of that hotel for the same friday night and name was mentioned of three customers as meeting food expenses. I was sure these bills are not correct as he was there with his family so i called both of the customers and they said that they dont know him and even they didnt met him so i took out his previous bills and called two or three more customers just to re-confirm.

I got same answer of No from all the customers as they didnt even met him so i asked him to come on first attempt he didnt agreed but when i forced him he admitted his mistake and said will never repeat this again and will return all the money that he claimed as expenses so far. He requested me that will not repeat this again but this is not a small issue if i will let him go then others might also think of doing this so letting him stay in company is not at all possible.

--> Closing- My suggestions will be mentioned here like what to do and what can we do to avoid this kind of behaviour issue in future

According to me he should be terminated as employee theft is not at all tolerable and its not good as well as everybody will start taking there expenses as source of personal expenses to enjoy there life by providing fake bills and all. I have given all the relevant details his expenses and his acceptance . Therefore please issue notice for him regarding his termination so that everybody else can learn something as a lesson. I also want to make some changes in claims bills forms but will do it once we get some time to meet up

5) No detail about e book readings and istructor documents details are mentioned

Example of the same situation - In my company also people are aske to provide their expenses for claims whoso ever was alotted with mobile/laptop or internet. A manager was also exposed when it was found that he is using the bills for his personal expenses and team checked his call history and details and calls found to be personal rathen then official even though he was manager he was terminated same day for employee theft so in all corporates and companies this is not tolerated.

I have tried to give all details . Thanks, please give a thums up

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