In this fictionalized case, Claire Marcy has just finished her first year running Marcy's Foods, Inc., a wholesale supplier of ingredients for the New York City restaurant industry. During the past year, she worked hard to grow the business and build her customer base, but with all the things that demanded her attention as the founder of a new company, keeping and managing its accounting records fell by the wayside. Marcy has hired Tom Hughes, a local CPA, to create a summary of all transactions from the business's first year of operations.

This case places students in Hughes's shoes, introducing them to the basics of recording transactions using journal entries and T-accounts and the basics of preparing financial statements. It can be taught as a stand-alone case, or it can be paired with "Marcy's Foods, Inc.: A Second Serving" (UVA-C-2497), which relates to the company's second year of operations.