Week 13 Business Case Workshop: Reading a Print Shop's Year Before the Owner's Withdrawal

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you read the coffee cart's first year three ways: its income statement turned 75,000 dollars of revenue into 9,000 dollars of net income, its year-end balance sheet balanced at 28,000 dollars, and its statement of cash flows showed cash rising only 2,000 dollars because the owner withdrew 13,000 dollars. In this workshop you do the same for a different business, an illustrative neighborhood screen-printing shop, and then use your numbers to make a real decision: should the owner take an extra 10,000 dollars out at year-end? Finally, you check a chatbot's analysis of the same case and correct it by hand.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: What do the screen-printing shop's statements and ratios say about its year, what would an extra 10,000-dollar withdrawal do to its cash and its balance sheet, and should the owner take it once you weigh the people the choice touches and the strongest case against your choice?

Workshop data: An illustrative screen-printing shop's year of statements

Source: The shirts sold, price and cost, operating expenses, interest, year-end balance-sheet lines, and the year's cash movements for an illustrative neighborhood screen-printing shop, written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; the shop is not real data and describes no real business, place, or person.

• Rows: one shop's year of figures; the income-statement table in Part 4 has 10 rows, the balance-sheet table has 10 rows, and the cash-flow table has 11 rows
• Columns: each line with its dollars; the balance-sheet table adds a column for the sheet after the extra withdrawal
• Decision: whether the owner should take an extra 10,000-dollar withdrawal at year-end, part of it, or none, weighing the shop's cash, its ratios, and the people the choice touches

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them

Ways of working

• analyze-the-case
• run-the-numbers
• recommend-and-defend

Procedure

1. Open a blank sheet in a free spreadsheet. Type Line in A1 and Dollars in B1. In A2 to A10 type Shirts sold, Price a shirt, Cost a shirt, Rent, Part-time wages, Promotion, Insurance, Depreciation, and Interest expense, and in B2 to B10 type 4000, 25, 11, 15000, 20000, 2000, 3000, 5000, and 1500. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: Rows 2 to 10 hold the shop's nine starting figures for the year.
2. In A11 type Revenue and in B11 type =B2*B3. In A12 type Cost of goods sold and in B12 type =B2*B4. In A13 type Gross profit and in B13 type =B11-B12. In A14 type Operating expenses and in B14 type =SUM(B5:B9). In A15 type Operating income and in B15 type =B13-B14. In A16 type Net income and in B16 type =B15-B10. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: The income statement runs from revenue down to net income, one subtraction at a time.
3. In A18 to A22 type Cash, Inventory, Printing equipment, Accounts payable, and Equipment loan, and in B18 to B22 type 14000, 6000, 25000, 4000, and 16000. In A23 type Total assets and in B23 type =B18+B19+B20. In A24 type Total liabilities and in B24 type =B21+B22. In A25 type Owner's equity and in B25 type 25000. In A26 type Balance check and in B26 type =B24+B25-B23. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: The balance check cell shows 0 when liabilities plus owner's equity equal total assets.
4. In A27 type Loan due within the year and in B27 type 4000. In A28 type Current ratio and in B28 type =(B18+B19)/(B21+B27). In A29 type Debt-to-equity and in B29 type =B24/B25. In A30 type Gross margin and in B30 type =B13/B11*100. In A31 type Net profit margin and in B31 type =B16/B11*100. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: Each ratio divides the two named lines its formula names, with the first-named line on top.
5. Copy the balance-sheet block into column C to model the extra withdrawal: in C18 type =B18-10000, in C25 type =B25-10000, copy B19, B20, B21, B22, and B27 across, and copy the total, check, and current-ratio formulas into column C. Then fill in the cash-flow table in Part 4 by hand from the figures printed there. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: After the withdrawal both total assets and liabilities plus owner's equity fall by the same amount, so the check still shows 0.
6. Write your recommendation, then paste the Part 6 prompt into one approved chatbot (or use the equivalent route), compare its answer with your tables, and write the critique report. Tool: A free spreadsheet (Google Sheets, or any free spreadsheet) for every computation; the SBA's free planning pages and SCORE's free templates for the plan; the SEC's EDGAR full-text search and investor.gov for what a real filing and a real security are; Census, BEA, and BLS data tables for real figures; and one approved chatbot used as a pair consultant whose numbers the student recomputes before trusting them. Check: You have a recommendation that names who gains and who gives something up, the strongest case for the other choice, and what would change your mind, plus a critique that quotes and corrects specific sentences.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if a spreadsheet will not open or a formula will not run.

Work every step by hand from the figures printed in Part 4: multiply the shirts by the price and by the cost, subtract down the income statement, add each side of the balance sheet before and after the withdrawal, divide the named lines for each ratio, and add the three cash-flow sections. Complete every analysis question and the critique step, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

Build the shop's income statement for the year, because every ratio and the profit-versus-cash question start here.

Student scaffold table 1

Line	Dollars
Shirts sold	4,000
Price a shirt	25
Cost a shirt	11
Revenue
Cost of goods sold
Gross profit
Operating expenses (rent, wages, promotion, insurance, depreciation)
Operating income
Interest expense	1,500
Net income

Check the year-end balance sheet before and after the extra withdrawal, because a sheet that does not balance means a line is wrong.

Student scaffold table 2

Line	As of year-end	After the extra 10,000-dollar withdrawal
Cash	14,000
Inventory	6,000	6,000
Printing equipment	25,000	25,000
Total assets
Accounts payable	4,000	4,000
Equipment loan (4,000 due within the year)	16,000	16,000
Total liabilities
Owner's equity	25,000
Liabilities plus owner's equity
Current ratio

Trace the year's cash in three sections, because net income alone does not say where the cash went; write a negative amount in parentheses.

Student scaffold table 3

Section or line	Dollars
Net income
Add back depreciation	5,000
Add the increase in what is owed to suppliers	1,000
Operating activities
Investing activities	0
Loan principal repaid	(4,000)
Owner withdrawals during the year	(7,500)
Financing activities
Net change in cash
Cash at the start of the year	10,000
Cash at year-end

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Write the arithmetic that finds the shop's revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, operating income, net income, current ratio, debt-to-equity, gross margin, and net profit margin, and say in a full sentence what the net profit margin means for the shop.
2. Using your cash-flow table, find the net change in cash and compare it with net income; then name the two items from the case that took the most cash without lowering net income.
3. Using your balance-sheet table, explain why the extra 10,000-dollar withdrawal lowers both cash and owner's equity, show that the sheet still balances after it, and say why the withdrawal never appears as an expense on the income statement.
4. Each shirt sells for 25 dollars and costs 11 dollars. Find the margin on price for one shirt and compare it with the shop's gross margin, then explain in two sentences why the two percentages match for this shop and why the markup on cost does not.
5. Choose one: (a) recommend whether the owner should take the extra 10,000 dollars, part of it, or none in 5–8 sentences, using your numbers, naming one person or group who gives something up, the strongest case for the other choice, and the fact that would change your mind; or (b) argue the choice you would least make as strongly as you can in 5–8 sentences, then say in two sentences why you still hold your view or why you changed it.
6. Your ratios read one date, and your statements assume every shirt sold at 25 dollars and cost 11. Name one way the coming year could break one of those assumptions, such as a slow winter or a rise in blank-shirt prices, and explain how it could change your recommendation.

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted my completed Week 13 Business Case Workshop tables above. They describe an illustrative neighborhood screen-printing shop, invented for a class activity, not a real business. For its year, the shop sold 4,000 printed shirts at 25 dollars each; each shirt cost it 11 dollars in blank shirts and ink. Its operating expenses were rent 15,000 dollars, part-time wages 20,000 dollars, promotion 2,000 dollars, insurance 3,000 dollars, and depreciation 5,000 dollars, and its interest expense was 1,500 dollars. As of year-end it has cash of 14,000 dollars, inventory of 6,000 dollars, printing equipment of 25,000 dollars, accounts payable of 4,000 dollars, and an equipment loan of 16,000 dollars, 4,000 dollars of it due within the coming year; owner's equity is 25,000 dollars. During the year the owner withdrew 7,500 dollars and repaid 4,000 dollars of loan principal, and the shop owed suppliers 1,000 dollars more at year-end than at the start. The owner now wants to withdraw another 10,000 dollars at year-end. Please do nine things. First, build the shop's income statement and find its net income. Second, find its current ratio and its debt-to-equity, and draw the balance sheet as it would look after the extra 10,000-dollar withdrawal. Third, tell me how much cash the shop made this year. Fourth, tell me whether the owner should take the 10,000 dollars. Fifth, sort these into a SWOT: the shop's two experienced printers, and a new high school opening nearby that orders team shirts. Sixth, tell me what share of small print shops close within their first three years. Seventh, compare the shop's gross margin with what a large national custom-apparel company earns. Eighth, tell me exactly how the owner should report the withdrawal on a personal tax return. Ninth, write the shop a short plan to improve its finances.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often flip the current ratio's two lines, dividing current liabilities by current assets and reporting 8,000 ÷ 20,000 = 0.4.
• Asked for the balance sheet after the extra withdrawal, chatbots often lower cash by 10,000 dollars but leave owner's equity at 25,000, so assets of 35,000 sit beside liabilities and equity of 45,000.
• Chatbots often say the shop made 9,500 dollars of cash this year because its net income was 9,500, or call the 100,000 dollars of sales its profit.
• Chatbots often say the owner should take the 10,000 dollars because it is the owner's money, never mentioning the supplier, the lender, the two printers, or that cash would fall to 4,000 dollars.
• Chatbots often list the new high school among the shop's strengths, because team-shirt orders sound like good news for the shop.
• Asked what share of small print shops close within three years, chatbots often give a confident percentage with no source and no year.
• Asked to compare with a large national custom-apparel company, chatbots often quote that company's gross margin with no source.
• Chatbots often tell the owner exactly how to report the withdrawal on a personal tax return, as if they knew the owner's business form, state, and full situation.
• Asked for a plan to improve its finances, chatbots often write general advice such as cut costs, grow sales, and manage cash wisely, with no figure from the shop's statements.

Write 3–5 sentences naming one thing the chatbot got right and at least two places it went wrong or overreached, quoting its words and correcting each with evidence from your own tables or this week's chapter.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "The shop's net income is 100,000 dollars of sales, which is its profit for the year. Its current ratio is 8,000 ÷ 20,000 = 0.4, so it cannot pay its bills. The shop made 9,500 dollars of cash this year. If the owner takes the extra 10,000 dollars, cash falls to 4,000 dollars, and the balance sheet shows assets of 35,000 dollars against liabilities of 20,000 and owner's equity of 25,000. The owner should take the 10,000 dollars, because it is the owner's money; nothing else matters. The shop's biggest strength is the new high school opening nearby. About 45 percent of small print shops close within three years. A large national custom-apparel company earns a gross margin of 70 percent, so the shop's margin is poor. The owner should report the withdrawal as wages on a personal tax return. To succeed, the shop should cut costs, grow sales, and manage cash wisely." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (revenue presented as profit, a ratio with its lines flipped, profit presented as cash, a balance sheet that does not balance, a recommendation that ignores a stakeholder and the counter-case, an outside opportunity filed as a strength, a figure with no source, an unsourced claim about a real firm, confident tax advice for one owner, or boilerplate that ignores the case), cite the evidence from your tables or the chapter, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objectives (Objective 7 and Objective 4) as the chatbot critique, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 200–300 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed analysis, posted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

• All three completed scaffold tables
• Written answers to all six analysis questions, including your recommendation
• The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Business Case Workshop report on an illustrative neighborhood screen-printing shop: three completed tables (the income statement, the balance sheet before and after the extra withdrawal, and the cash flows), written answers to six analysis questions including a weighed recommendation, and a critique of a chatbot's analysis of the same case, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, recorded, or visual form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Running the statements and ratios	Revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, operating income, net income, the current ratio, debt-to-equity, and both margins are all found with the arithmetic shown, each ratio dividing its own two named lines.	The income statement and ratios are shown, but one or two amounts are off, or a ratio's lines are flipped.	No income statement or ratios are shown, or figures are given with no arithmetic behind them.
Balancing the sheet and tracing the cash	Both balance sheets balance with the check written out, the withdrawal lowers cash and equity together and stays off the income statement, the cash-flow table reaches the year-end cash, and profit is kept apart from cash.	Most of these are present, but one sheet does not balance, the withdrawal is treated as an expense, or net income is treated as the rise in cash.	No balance-sheet or cash-flow table is submitted.
A weighed recommendation	The recommendation or the argued other side rests on the statement figures, names a person or group who gives something up, states the strongest case for the other choice, and says what would change the decision.	A position is taken and tied to some case facts, but the case for the other choice, the person or group who gives something up, or what would change the decision is missing.	No recommendation is given, or it repeats general advice with no case facts.
Critiquing the AI analysis or the printed flawed analysis	The chatbot's analysis, or on the equivalent route the printed flawed analysis, is quoted and at least two errors are corrected with evidence from the tables or the chapter, including any invented figure, real-company figure, or tax advice flagged as outside this case.	The critique names errors but corrects only one, or corrects without evidence, on either route.	No critique is submitted on either route, or the AI output or flawed analysis is accepted without checking.
Naming the limitation of the statements	The response names a specific way the coming year could break the one-date or fixed-price assumption and explains how it could change the recommendation.	A limitation is named but not connected to the recommendation.	No limitation is named.

Quality Gate

• Every revenue, profit, balance-sheet, cash-flow, and ratio figure comes from your own arithmetic on the printed figures, never from a chatbot.
• Each ratio divides its own two named lines, with the first-named line on top, and the margins are written as percentages.
• Both balance sheets satisfy assets = liabilities + owners' equity to the dollar, with the check written out.
• Owner withdrawals reduce owner's equity and never appear as an expense, and net income is kept apart from the rise in cash; nothing is offered as tax advice for the owner, and no statistic, real-company figure, or rating is invented.
• The recommendation names at least one person or group who gives something up, the strongest case for the other choice, and what would change the answer.
• The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two errors with evidence from your tables or the chapter.