Assignment instructions: It is recommended that students carefully read these instructions prior to commencing work on this assignment.
This assignment allows you to build technical skills appropriate to course objectives, gives you valuable practice for the exam and allows us to evaluate your progress. This assignment is highly integrated with the exam, which in turn allows you to demonstrate the key skills identified in the course objectives. Therefore, all the work you put into this assignment also serves as excellent preparation for the examination.
It is recommended that students commence work on this assignment as early as possible. Please read the extension policy available on the study desk before requesting an extension. It is strongly recommended that all submissions be made by the due date to allow for appropriate examination revision.
Model solutions will appear on the study desk early in the examination period. As the due date is late in the semester, it is possible that students may not receive personal assignment feedback before the examination. Generalised feedback and sample solutions will however be provided before your exam. Please be assured that every effort will be made by the markers to return assignments to students as soon as possible. Assignments will be marked in the order that they are received, so students who submit early have a better chance of receiving personal feedback before their exam. Please note however that assignments submitted after model answers have been published will not be marked.
All submissions must be made via the EASE link on the course study desk. Only submissions made through EASE will be marked. EASE will be set up to accept a single Word or PDF file only.
You must use the methodologies and techniques as outlined in the Satzinger et al textbook. If you do not use the correct methodologies, you may not receive good marks.
Students may use any software they prefer to prepare your diagrams and models, such as word, excel or drawing and modelling software. It is perfectly acceptable to submit neat hand-drawn diagrams for your solution in electronic form. As long as your solution is neat, readable and follows the guidelines it does not matter what product you have used to prepare your solution.
All of the questions for this assignment relate directly to the Victorian Wine Growers Association case study provided below. Please use the following case study description to prepare solutions for this assignment.
Case Study: Victorian Wine Growers Association.
The Victorian Wine Growers Association (VWGA) has many shareholders. There are several kinds of shareholders within the association: Grower, Employee and Private. Every shareholder is registered and a record is created on the information system for them when they first acquire shares. Registration can be done in a number of ways: the shareholder goes into the head office or completes a form and mails it to the head office. These details are then entered by the office clerk; the shareholder phones or emails head office and their details are entered by the office clerk, or; the shareholder enters their details themselves via the company website.
The following details are entered for all shareholders, regardless of how they register: name, postal address, contact telephone numbers, email address, shareholder category, date joined and a unique shareholder number. Grower shareholders require the following details: the name of their property, the size of the property and a list of the wine varieties that they produce. Employee shareholders have their job title recorded as well as their office number and work telephone number.
All shareholders must agree to purchase shares through a stock broker. Employee shareholders must use a particular stock broker company as nominated for all employees by VWGA. Other shareholders may nominate a specific stock broker company to purchase shares for them and details of this company must then be recorded at the time of registration. Grower and private shareholders may purchase from any broker and each broker may sell to any shareholder. Employee shareholders must use a broker from the nominated company only.
Each purchase of a parcel of shares occurs between a broker and a shareholder and has the purchase date, the number of shares, the purchase price per share, commission amount and the total amount recorded. Individual brokers are identified by their broker registration code and have name and contact details stored along with the details of their brokerage company name and postal address.
Information regarding all sales of shares and broker details are recorded by an office clerk at VWGA. Each shareholder is issued with a certificate of purchase each time they purchase shares by an office clerk at VWGA. Each certificate records a unique certificate number, the certificate issue date, number of shares, purchaser’s name and broker’s name.
Given the current economic climate, shareholders may be interested in monitoring the value of their current shares. Shareholders may choose to receive regular email reports to keep track of current trade prices. Details of these report requirements can be adjusted by the shareholder through the company website. Shareholders select the frequency of these daily reports: 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm and 10pm or any combination of those times. Appropriate reporting processes must be provided to manage the appropriate distribution of these email reports to shareholders.
Dividend payments are automatically calculated by the system for each shareholder on the anniversary of the purchase date of that particular lot of shares. For each dividend, a unique dividend sequence payment number is recorded as well as the dividend date. The dividend amount to be paid is set by a member of the board and updated to the system at the start of each month.
Functionality to allow changes to any recorded information must also be provided.