During 2020, King's Drug Company experienced a significant increase in the rate of gross profit on sales, compared with the rate it has averaged in recent years. You are asked to determine the most likely reason for this improvement.

In december of 2004, the company you own entered into a 20-year contract with a grain supplier for daily deliveries of grain to its hot dog bun manufacturing facility. the contract called for "10,000 pounds of grain" to be delivered to the facility at the price of $100,000 per day. until february 2017, the supplier provided processed grain which could easily be used in your manufacturing process. however, no longer wanting to absorb the cost of having the grain processed, the supplier began delivering whole grain. the supplier is arguing that the contract does not specify the type of grain that would be supplied and that it has not breached the contract. your company is arguing that the supplier has an onsite processing plant and processed grain was implicit to the terms of the contract. over the remaining term of the contract, reshipping and having the grain processed would cost your company approximately $10,000,000, opposed to a cost of around $1,000,000 to the supplier. after speaking with in-house counsel, it was estimated that litigation would cost the company several million dollars and last for years. weighing the costs of litigation, along with possible ambiguity in the contract, what are three options you could take to resolve the dispute? which would be the best option for your business and why?

Two products, qi and vh, emerge from a joint process. product qi has been allocated $34,300 of the total joint costs of $55,000. a total of 2,900 units of product qi are produced from the joint process. product qi can be sold at the split-off point for $11 per unit, or it can be processed further for an additional total cost of $10,900 and then sold for $13 per unit. if product qi is processed further and sold, what would be the financial advantage (disadvantage) for the company compared with sale in its unprocessed form directly after the split-off point?

Slimwood corporation made sales of $ 725 million during 2018. of this amount, slimwood collected cash for $ 670 million. the company's cost of goods sold was $ 300 million, and all other expenses for the year totaled $ 400 million. also during 2018, slimwood paid $ 420 million for its inventory and $ 285 million for everything else. beginning cash was $ 110 million. carter's top management is interviewing you for a job and they ask two questions: (a) how much was carter's net income for 2018? (b) how much was carter's cash balance at the end of 2016? you will get the job only if you answer both questions correctly.