Excel Project. Accountants should help managers understand trends in revenue cycle activities. One important issue concerns granting credit to customers. Trends in bad debt expense (BDE) to write-offs (WO) provide insights into the accuracy of credit granting policies. It is also important to monitor how long it will take to write off the current balance in the allowance for doubtful accounts (BADA Exhaustion Rate).

REQUIRED

a. Create a spreadsheet that contains the following data:

b. Create a two-dimensional columnar chart that displays the data values for each variable for the five years.

c. Create a new chart that will display a two-dimensional columnar chart that shows a rolling five-year window of the variables. Add the following data for Year 6 and Year 7 to your spreadsheet to demonstrate that the new chart shows only Years 1–5 values:

(Hint: Read the article “Simplify Your Future with Rolling Charts,” by James A. Weisel in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of Accountancy for an explanation of how to create a rolling chart (requirement c for this problem)—and take care to follow Excel’s rules for naming ranges. Read the article “Assessing the Allowance for Doubtful Accounts: Using historical data to evaluate the estimation process,” by Mark E. Riley and William R. Pasewark in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Accountancy for an explanation of how the variables used in this problem can help you evaluate a company’s process for estimating the allowance for doubtful accounts. The Journal of Accountancy is available either in print or online at www.aicpa.org.)*