As you sit at your desk on your first day back after a rejuvenating vacation to the Caribbean, you bring your mind back to your work as the head of a beverage bottling plant. You have a lot of work to catch up on, and need to prioritize what is most important to address today. Because a recent acquisition of a competitor has created a situation in which the merged organization has some redundancy across jobs and roles you take a look at how jobs in your plant are designed and make sure that managers have a reasonable number of employees who report to them.

Costco wholesale corporation operates membership warehouses selling food, appliances, consumer electronics, apparel and other household goods at 471 locations across the u.s. as well as in canada, mexico and puerto rico. as of its fiscal year-end 2005, costco had approximately 21.2 million members. selected fiscal-year information from the company's balance sheets follows. ($ millions). selected balance sheet data 2005 2004 merchandise inventories $4,015 $3,644 deferred membership income (liability) 501 454 (a) during fiscal 2005, costco collected $1,120 cash for membership fees. use the financial statement effectstemplate to record the cash collected for membership fees. (b) in 2005, costco recorded $46,347 million in merchandise costs (that is, cost of goods sold). record thistransaction in the financial statement effects template. (c) determine the value of merchandise that costco purchased during fiscal-year 2005. use the financial statementeffects template to record these merchandise purchases. assume all of costco's purchases are on credit.