Scenario Update A
You and Sam have been in touch since the Palm Beach Business Development Luncheon, and he has expressed interest in you working on his business audit. The two of you make plans to meet for lunch, but this time at his deli in Boca.
Sam would like a proposal for the services you [T&M] can offer. If he likes the proposal, he is prepared to sign a follow-up engagement letter.
You go back to the office to start work on the proposal. You have learned the Sam’s Deli is a privately-owned company with annual sales of 1.2 million. The two locations combined have 40-50 employees at any given time. The company has an outstanding bank loan; the bank requires the audit.
See The Proposal assignment instructions below.
We use plagiarism software. Any block of text that is taken from another source without attribution will result in the entire assignment earning zero points.
- Write a proposal for Sam’s Super Deli. Use memo format, full block. Page 192 [ATTACHED] is a full block Memo to File.This example has the headings flush left. Please center yours.
As you already know from Module 5, high-impact format [e.g., headings, bullets, and numbers] make the reader’s job much easier. Use bullets/numbers and headings, centered, bold, upper and lower case, and no underline, per APA.
For a full explanation of APA style with examples, visit the Purdue Owl. [Links to an external site.]
- Use the T&M letterhead/logo you created for your peer reviews. [SKIP]
- Include T&M’s fee structure in your proposal. Sam will be billed hourly based on the type of work being done and the level of expertise of the auditor. As partners, both Seth and Anna bill at $250 per hour. Supervisor and manager rates are $170 per hour. Senior staff rates are $125 per hour, and junior staff rates are $80 per hour.
The proposal needs to identify what you [T&M] will do and layout the fees for the job at hand: the audit. You will have to estimate how many hours T&M will need and who will be performing what type of work for the audit. Junior staff accountants will handle bookkeeping, payroll, and write-up work, which will be reviewed by a senior staff member. Senior staff will provide tax services, which will be reviewed by Seth or Anna, and the final audit will be reviewed by Seth or Anna.
Also, include a timeline for all deliverables.
- As you want this proposal to serve as a marketing tool as well, mention the advantage of using T&M’s other services [e.g., financial statement audits, corporate taxes, payroll and bookkeeping, the maintenance of Sam’s personal finances, the preparation of his personal financial statements, and his personal income taxes]. This information can be your last paragraph.
- 5.Keep your proposal memo to two pages maximum, and remember you are writing a proposal, not an engagement letter. You will lose points for not following these instructions.
TIP: Write your own original proposal and do NOT use a proposal template. None of them fit this assignment.
Here’s how you should format your Proposal Memo:
1. BASIC FORMAT
We are NOT using “full APA style,” which includes a cover page, abstract, and so forth. Rather, we are using standard professional/business “full block” format for a memorandum, which includes single-spacing and no indenting of paragraphs [instead have a blank line space between paragraphs]. Include second-plus page headers; most importantly, include “Page 2 of 2” type page numbers. The notes to “follow APA style” refer more to very specific details, like italicizing newspaper titles.
2. MEMO MAIN HEADER FORMAT
Remember, first start with your letterhead, which is the basic, general company contact info–not yours, either in real life or as a T&M employee. Then, the memo main header format should be like this:
MEMORANDUM [but centered]
TO: Sample Name, Sample Title and/or Company if appropriate
FROM: Sample Author Name, Title
DATE: Month XX, 2021
SUBJECT: Detailed but relatively brief phrase that identifies the memo’s purpose
NOTE That the “MEMORANDUM” should be centered horizontally, but the rest of the main header begins flush on the left margin. Also note the vertical aligning of the words after the colons.
There are many appropriate variations, of course. For example, the To/From/Date/Subject could be bolded instead of ALL CAPS.
3. SECTIONS WITH HEADINGS
Be sure to organize your memo by using sections with headings. The headings should then be centered and bolded; if you have any second-level/subheadings, they can also be bolded, but should be on the left margin.
4. BETTER SAMPLE MEMO
The sample memos in the May and May textbook are okay, but for our purposes, this online sample is better:
