| Course | MT299 Associate's Capstone in Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 8 |
| Paper type | Cost and benefit case |
| Length | About 890 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT299 Unit 8
Every Option Has a Payer: A Unit 8 Cost and Benefit Case for Three Ways to Cut Flower Waste
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT299: Associate's Capstone in Management
Unit 8 Cost and Benefit Case
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Hartwell Florist, its costs, wages, estimates and the wholesaler are composite and illustrative; the figures were calculated in a spreadsheet whose formulas are printed in the appendix; the sources cited are real.
Assumptions
Annual fresh-cut flower purchases: $128,000
Discards at about 22 percent of purchases by cost: $28,160 a year
Share of discarded cost from the Thursday delivery: about 60 percent, or $16,896
Shop manager's wage: $19 an hour; designers' wage: $17 an hour
Sympathy reserve: about 300 white and green stems held at all times, excluded from waste
Each assumption comes from an earlier unit: purchases from the invoices, the discard rate and Thursday share from the four-week log, wages from the owner. Garrison et al. (2021) stress separating one-time costs from recurring ones and counting only costs that change with the decision, and the case follows that rule.
Option A: Thursday Par Sheet
Savings: cutting the Thursday order to match current weekend sales plus the sympathy reserve is expected to remove about half of the Thursday-related waste, about $8,450 a year. The estimate assumes the par sheet trims about 300 stems from a typical Thursday order of 1,650. Heizer et al. (2020) describe par levels as target quantities set from recent demand, which is how the sheet will work.
Costs: about one hour of the shop manager's time each Tuesday to review sales and the cooler and set the order, 52 hours at $19, about $988; and an occasional $25 small-order fee when a light week falls below the wholesaler's minimum, estimated at twice a year, $50. Total about $1,040 a year.
Net: about $7,410 a year.
Option B: Cooler Repair and Dated Rotation
One-time cost: $1,650 for a technician to recalibrate the thermostat, replace the door gasket and check the compressor, from the technician's written quote.
Savings: holding the cooler at 33 to 35 degrees is expected to add one to two days of life to most stems, cutting waste from wilting by about $3,840 a year, a conservative share of the loss the log attributed to stems that wilted in the cooler.
Recurring cost: designers spend about an hour a week taping buckets by delivery day and pulling oldest first, 55 hours at $17, about $940.
Net recurring: about $2,900 a year. The repair pays for itself in about seven months.
Option C: Saturday Market Bunches
Revenue: wrapping aging stems into simple bunches sold at the counter on Saturdays for $9.99 is expected to bring in about $9,880 a year.
Costs: wrap and sleeves about $1,040 a year; designer time about 78 hours on Saturday mornings at $17, about $1,326; and an estimated $1,000 of full-price sales lost to shoppers who would otherwise have bought a regular bunch.
Net: about $6,520 a year.
The cannibalization estimate is the least certain figure in the case. Scarborough and Cornwall (2019) caution that small retailers often underestimate how much a discount line draws from full-price sales.
Who Pays
The shop manager pays in about an hour every Tuesday for the par sheet
The owner pays $1,650 once for the repair
Designers pay in an hour a week of rotation and, for market bunches, Saturday morning hours
The wholesaler loses about $12,300 a year of orders if Options A and B work, since the shop will buy less
The last line matters. The shop's relationship with the wholesaler is long-standing, and the representative should hear about the smaller orders from the owner, not discover them on the invoices.
The money the shop saves is money the wholesaler no longer earns.
Interactions
The options overlap. If the par sheet and cooler repair work, fewer aging stems will be left for market bunches, so Option C's revenue would shrink. Adding all three savings would overstate the total.
Benefits That Are Not Money
Two benefits do not appear in the totals. A colder cooler means flowers last longer after customers take them home, which the lead designer expects to reduce the small number of complaints about arrangements wilting within days. And a par sheet gives the shop manager a weekly record of what sells, which the shop has never had and which will help plan for the peaks.
Sensitivity
If the par sheet saves only $5,000 instead of $8,450, it still nets about $3,960 a year. If the cooler repair saves half of what is expected, it still pays back within about a year and a half. Both options remain worthwhile under pessimistic assumptions.
Recommendation
The shop should run Options A and B together. In the first year, they are expected to return about $8,660 after the repair's cost, and about $10,310 a year after that. Discards would fall from about 22 percent of purchases to about 12.4 percent, meeting the target. Market bunches should be tested only after the first two have run for three months, when the remaining surplus is known.
Appendix: Spreadsheet Formulas
The spreadsheet holds each assumption in its own cell, and every saving and cost is a formula referring to those cells, so the owner can change a wage or a purchase figure and see the result at once.
References
Garrison, R. H., Noreen, E. W., & Brewer, P. C. (2021). Managerial accounting (17th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Heizer, J., Render, B., & Munson, C. (2020). Operations management: Sustainability and supply chain management (13th ed.). Pearson.
Scarborough, N. M., & Cornwall, J. R. (2019). Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management (9th ed.). Pearson.
Reading the MT 299 Unit 8 instructions
Unit 8 puts prices on the options that survived the screening, both what each would cost and what it would return. Prompts usually want stated assumptions with sources, one-time and recurring costs separated, expected savings or revenue, a net figure for each option and a recommendation or ranking supported by the numbers. Many add a sensitivity check on the least certain estimate and a note on benefits that cannot be priced. Instructors look for arithmetic they can follow, which means each figure traceable to an assumption, and for honesty about overlaps when options affect the same cost. Who bears each cost is worth stating, since a plan that saves money for the owner may cost time for staff or revenue for a partner. Four to six pages is typical, often with a table of assumptions and either an appendix of formulas or an attached spreadsheet, citing a managerial accounting text in APA style.
How this MT299 Unit 8 example is built
Hartwell's case opens with five assumptions, each traced to an earlier unit, and cites Garrison and colleagues on relevant costs. Every option then gets the same three parts: savings, costs and net. The par sheet trims about 300 stems from a typical Thursday order and saves around $8,450 against roughly $1,040 of Tuesday time and occasional small-order fees. The cooler repair shows its one-time quote, its recurring rotation labor and a seven-month payback, which a margin note ties to a test owners already use. Market bunches carry the shakiest number, lost full-price sales, flagged with Scarborough and Cornwall. A section called Who Pays lists everyone affected, including the wholesaler, and the highlighted line notes that the shop's savings are the supplier's lost revenue. An interactions paragraph warns against adding all three savings. Unpriced benefits, a sensitivity test and a recommendation follow, with a formula appendix.
MT299 Unit 8 rubric: what earns full points
Cost and benefit cases are usually scored on the accuracy of calculations, the quality of assumptions, completeness of costs, analysis of results and presentation. Accuracy carries real weight, so totals should reconcile and repeated figures should match across sections; graders often recheck one option's arithmetic by hand. Assumption credit goes to sourced numbers, such as a technician's written quote or wages confirmed by the owner, rather than round guesses. Completeness means staff time is costed, not treated as free, and that the repair bill is never blended into annual running costs. The analysis criterion rewards papers that notice interactions between options and test the least certain figure, because a recommendation that survives pessimistic assumptions is more persuasive. Naming who bears each cost earns credit in many sections. A clear table or list of assumptions, readable formulas or an appendix and correct APA citations for the accounting text complete the rubric.
MT299 Unit 8 help from the desk
Cases lose the most marks when staff time is left out, which makes every option look cheaper than it is. Another frequent error is adding the savings of options that overlap, so the combined total promises more waste reduction than exists. Some papers mix one-time and annual costs in a single figure, making the payback impossible to follow. Others give revenue from a discount line without subtracting the full-price sales it replaces. Numbers that drift from earlier units, such as a different purchase total than the profile reported, damage credibility in the final report. Build a single list of assumptions first, then make every calculation refer back to it, as the florist case does with its spreadsheet cells. Test the figure you trust least by halving it and see whether the recommendation still holds. Share whatever figures and quotes you have collected so far, and the cost case can be assembled around them.
Get an MT299 Unit 8 example written to your instructions
Forward the options you carried out of Unit 7, whatever figures you have, and the Unit 8 instructions with the rubric. A custom case prices each of those options from one table of assumptions, shows its formulas and names who bears every cost. Delivery is within 24-48h, and nothing is charged for a first case. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT299 Unit 8 questions, answered
What if I do not have exact cost figures?
Use reasoned estimates and label them. Supplier quotes, published prices, wage rates and your own counts can fill most gaps, and each estimate should show its source. A sensitivity check on the least certain figure then shows whether the recommendation depends on it. Instructors generally accept estimates that are transparent far more readily than precise-looking numbers with no basis.
Should benefits be measured in money only?
Money is the common denominator, but some benefits resist it, such as staff morale or customer goodwill. List those separately as unpriced benefits rather than inventing a dollar value. The recommendation should still stand on the priced figures, with unpriced items acknowledged as supporting or complicating factors.
Is a spreadsheet required for the cost and benefit case?
Not always, but most cases benefit from one, either as an appendix or as a printed table. What matters is that the reader can follow each calculation. Showing formulas, or a short explanation of how each figure was derived, lets your instructor verify the arithmetic and gives you credit for method as well as results.
Where can I find a free MT299 Unit 8 sample paper?
The complete MT299 Unit 8 cost and benefit case is on this page. It prices a par sheet, a cooler repair and Saturday market bunches for a composite florist, names who pays for each and recommends the first two together.
Why does the MT299 Unit 8 sample warn against adding all three savings?
The options draw on the same surplus. If the par sheet and colder cooler work, fewer aging stems remain to wrap into market bunches, so adding all three figures would overstate what the plan delivers.