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Questions: 1.Identify and briefly discuss five factors at SCU you would need to consider in your assessment of the Effectiveness of SCUs control Environment? 2.Identify five Effective Internal Controls in the System and determine for each internal control, the risk that the Control would/could Mitigate. 3.Identify and briefly discuss ten Weaknesses in Internal Control for sales and trade receivables that you would bring to SCU Managements notice in your Management letter. Answers: 1.ISA 315, sets out the examiners accountability to identify and measure the risks of substantial statements which are mistated in the financial declarations, through considerate the entity and its atmosphere including the entitys inner controL. The control atmosphere includes the meanings, arrogances, consciousness and movements of those accountable for supremacy and organization regarding the entitys internal control and its position in the unit. The five factors at SCU that would be considered in the valuation of the efficiency of SCU control enviironment are:- Organisational Structure Proper organisation structure is necessary The organisation structure is the tool by which the entity doings for attaining its objectives are prearranged, executed, skilful and reviewed. Any entity that is appropriate can be seen by the companys size of opeerations. For example any company which has offices all over the world has different priorities than a company which is just sictuated in one country and having limited number of operations. Usually, an auditor may rationally imagine there to be a optimistic association amongst the level of intrinsic risk and the size and difficulty of a businesss processes. ISA 315,Classifying and Measuring the Risks of Statements that is mistated through Considering the Entity and Its Environment,sets out the examiners accountability to identify and measure the risks of substantial misstatement in the financial declarations, through considerate the entity and its atmosphere including the entitys internal controLThe cash team should be responsible to be answerable to the management team, Also there should be proper guarantee that adequate reportage associations and approval hierarchies are in place The assignment of responsibility is very much requiredThe authority , the persons delegating opertations, the end person maintaining the company should be in form to meet the desired objectives of the company. In SCU the organisation should be skillfull and proper risks should be identified at periods. Assignmnent Of Authority And Accountability The Large the company is , more operations are being conducted.There is larger degree of amount of task of authority and accountability that is essential. In SUC the team should be interconnected. The cash team should be responsible to be answerable to the management team, They also need to guarantee that adequate journalism associations and authorisation hierarchies are in place The assignment of responsibility is very much required . For example here if any clerk is apoointed so the payroll apartment is required toenter the clerk name in the payroll master file. In this company if supposedly not having enough authority over the activities it wil lead to misleading financial statements, misleading information. In this if the staff recives any sales return it needs to be checked byt the appropriate team and the information needs to be delivered to the Accounts recievabble team so that they can issue a credit note in respect of the same.In SCU when the staff is checking any pilferage area , the trade recievable clerk is doing his job and the financial conrtroller is doing his. There should be assignment of authority and responsibilty. Inclusion Of Those Charged With Governance The directors are generally charged with governance and are responsible for conducting the affairs of the company. He is accountable to the administration , shareholders and other authorities. Given the inspiration that the actions of managements have on a businesss inner control, the extent of their norml day to day operayion active participation in the companys processes has a inescapable effect on the internal control of the business. The degree of each managers contribution is largely prejudiced by the nature of their specialized correction and their individual viewpoint about how they should transmit out their individual roles. Though, they may insist on nursing action by way of receiving of formal description reports In SCU the directors are not playing any major role which should be the case. The directors should take in charge of some of the important matters. Policies And Practices Of Human Resources Proper recruitment of human resources are necessary to create good the control in the entity, It needs to make sure that only the deserving indiviuals need to be in the company . For the new entrants there should be proper induction that should be conducted so that they carry their duties more poperly and effectively. Proper trainings and proper coach should be allocated to them s that they can tell all their problems to them. Proper recruitment of human resources are necessary to create good the control in the entity, It needs to make sure that only the deserving indiviuals need to be in the company Proper appraisal should be there so that the employees are motivated to work better and more performanace track and feedbacks should be implemented so that the employees need to know where they are lacking and make proper efforts to develop. Employment conclusion procedures should integrate provision for an exit conference so that the aim for the end can be established or explained, all payments due to the employee can be established and measures can be made for the return of all corporation assets prior to the finish date (Accounting tools, 2017) Communication Of Ethical Values Proper ethical values should be communicated to the employees . It is obvious that such standards do happen and are transferred effectively to workers and personnel and enforced, this will have the effect of increasing self-assurance and self-confidence in the enterprise, management and nursing of controls. When requested to clarify what is meant by the period control environment, they characteristically comment that it is a constituent of a businesss internal control and that it focuses about how a corporation is functioned by its organisation, dazzling such substances as their attitude and functioning elegance. Given the inspiration that the actions of managements have on a businesss internal control, the extent of their normal business active participation in the companys processes has an inescapable effect on the internal control of the business (Control Environment, 2017) 2.An internal control is the practice by the business which is incorporated within an organization to create some amount of value and to minimize risk Proper internal control are very important to detect fraud and error in the organization. There are many meanings of internal control, as it touches the various electorates (stakeholders) of an organization in numerous ways and at dissimilar levels of combination. All invoices must be official for expense by the economical holder, although the actual checking of particulars may be surrogate. The approving subdivision is accountable for checking statements for accurateness in relations of statistics and conventionality with the order sited, that the amenities or goods have been established, and subsequent up any problems. General speaking there are two types of internal control, firstly there is Preventive Control They are organised to prevent any error in the company. It helps to meet the objectives in time. Precautionary control actions aim to detect the example of mistakes or fraud. Preventive activities include thorough certification and agreement practices. Preventive control actions stop unwanted "activities" from trendy, thus need well thought out procedures and danger documentation. Detective Controls They are implemented after any error or any mishappening have occurred in the organisation. Unless the organisation is happy to let the whole thing become completely incompetent, the secretarial system will need to start various rules and guidelines which will start an in-house control system, for example: n the founding of money bounds for certain businesses and the meaning of levels of accountability for approving communications n the need for referral of conclusion making to another individual when required. Defining whether a specific internal control scheme is real is a decision resulting from an valuation of whether the five mechanisms - Control Atmosphere, Threat Assessment, Control Doings, Evidence and Announcement, and Monitoring - are current and operative. Effective controls provide sensible pledge regarding the achievement of established purposes. Control atmosphere are the definite policies that ensures that the management are doing their job in a correct manner. They include a range of activities as varied as endorsements, approvals, corroborations, understandings, appraisals of working performance, safety of possessions and separation of obligations and responsibilities. Information and communication means that the necessary information should be identifies and seen so that the responsible individuals can carry their responsibilities. Every staff should have a message communicated from the top management regarding how to work and manage their work. hey must understand their own role in the interior control system, as well as how discrete doings relate to the work of others. They must have a means of collaborating noteworthy evidence upstream. Monitoring is a procedure that assesses the quality of the system's performance over time. It comprises steady organization and superintendent happenings, and other schedules employee s take in execution their obligations that evaluate the superiority of internal control scheme presentation. Risk valuation is actually a process of identifying an type of risk and seeing all the procedures and finding ways to mitigate it. Risks can relate to internal and external factors. After dangers have been recognized , it should definitely be evaluated. The five different type of internal controls that can be implemented can be:- Reconciliation Reconciliation is done so that the accounting balances can be match with the cash or bank balances or in case of fixed assists, the amount shown in the books can be matched with the receipts. Reconciliation in general mean that the amount should be matched with respective ledgers. Alterations or variances amongst these types of harmonizing accounts can expose errors or inconsistencies in the own accounts, or the mistakes may initiate with the other individuals. The risk that is available in it is that without any reconicaltion there can be robbery ,that is the cash balances wont match with respective accounts. The discrepancies cant be seen and we cant detect any amount of fault that is being made . At each month end, the trade receivables clerk prepares a reconciliation of the trade receivables ledger to the debtors control account in the general ledger (Audit risk, 2017) Documentation Documentation is a very important internal control. Normalizing documents used for monetary dealings, such as statements, inner supplies requests, record receipts and travel expenditure reports, can help to uphold constancy in keeping over time.Proper documentation will lead no misinterpretation. The risk of not proper documenting is that the records cant be maintained which will lead to any defaults and discrepancy. For example any sales return can be seen by the sales entry that is being made, without proper documentation a corporation cant suffice in long run. Launch secretarial routines to safeguard that no false dealings are administered and that all lawful dealings are logged for the precise quantity and books. In SCU a sales journal summarising all sales invoices is prepared monthly by the computer system. Separation of duties Duties should be segregated between individuals. Duties are separated among unlike people todecrease the risk of error or unsuitable action. Normally, tasks for authorizing dealings (approval), recording communications (accounting) and management the related asset are divided. It is very important to have segregation of duties as any person doing everything will actually lead to more risk as any error as he wont be able to identify any of his mistakes. Risks can be mitigated as the authorities will be handled by different persons which will reduce the risk of any default. Like the financial controller is soing his job, the trade recievale clerk is doing his jon, there is speration of reposibilitie at SCU Security of assests Security of assests are necessary like access to kit, stock , safeties, cash and other assets is limited; assets are periodically totalled and likened to quantities shown on control records. Proper records are maintained so that any discrepancies can be noted. For example ensuring that the cheque books are locked up and are controlled by someone who doesnt issue the checks, it needs to make sure that the passwords should not be known to anybody except the concerned person. And also depositing the receipts such as money orders, cash, in to the bank accounts each and every day. Authorization and approval Organization approves employees to achieve certain activities and to perform certain dealings within limited limits. In addition, organization stipulates those doings or dealings that need managerial support before they are achieved or implemented by teams. A managers support (manual or automated) suggests that he or she has confirmed and authenticated that the action or business imitates to recognized rules and events. Endorsement specialist is to be proportionate with the nature and implication of the communications and in agreement with University procedure (Markgraf, 2017). . Once completed, this document is passed on to the trade receivables clerk who raises a credit note and sends it to the customer in SCU 3.Every fraud that has been evolved till date is because of the low detection or no detection at all, no body monitors the work of thaw employees who make daily deposits in the bank. Therefore, this is the number one cause of revenue fraud wherever in books receivable. The key issue is the Control of the environment. Proper audit trail should be done so that the mistakes can be identified very sooner. Any fraud in the company can be identified with any documents that is missing or destroyed. So the invoices , duplicate invoices need s to checked very properly to avoid this (Dervaes, 2017) The flaws in internal control for trade receivables are:- The receivable transactions always go through journal that is the sales journal in the software and then it generates its own accounting entries. So sometimes the staffs have some manual entries which actually creates differences Some entities only collect funds from the balances of the current accounts. As just renowned, someone could interrupt incoming expenditures from clients and hide the theft with a credit memo. We should have password-protect admission to the billing software to stop the illicit group of credit memos. If an statement for a large-dollar quantity contains an mistake, the client may hold up sum until you send a reread invoice. Normally seeing the large invoices should be made to mitigate any risk associated with it Proper monetary of debtor balances are reviewed or not. Sometimes debtors credit period gets over and proper notice are not send to them regarding the payment with interest which leads to bad debts. Therefore proper monitoring is not made in respect of the balances. Duplicate invoices are not made which can be a greater weakness in the system Sometimes proper signature of the parties with authorization are not there which can create fictitious entries. If there are uncommon imbursement terms, authenticate them before generating an invoice. Then, accounts receivable will contain accounts that clienteles refuse to pay. This can be a great weakness as most of the customers refuse to pay Major weakness can be most of the cases debtors can give money in cash and then invoices are made of less amount. Proper invoicing is not done with the product amount As just noted, no one should be able to lever incoming purchaser payments and create credit memos, or else they will be able to take the currency and shelter their tracks with credit memos. Therefore, allocate these responsibilities to dissimilar persons. The secretarial staff may erroneously apply cash earnings to open statements, maybe not even smearing them to the books of the correct clients. Have the interior audit run occasionally trace an assortment of money receipts to client invoices to verify good cash application (Lohrey, 2017). Sometimes the employed approval of the credit department on all deals orders over a certain dollar amount which can be a weakness. The flaws in internal control for Sales are:- We need to see whether the materials that are delivered are being properly packed or not because this if not this will lead to defective sales. Major weakness can be recording of sales. Sales can be recorded as net of discounts, or cash discounts which is not allowed. Sometimes excessive invoice amount is there in sales and the extra money can be taken in cash which is actually a major weakness We see that the shipping documentation is not matched with the sales invoice which can proves as a defect in the internal control. Authorisation of the terms of credit is not properly verified. Segregation of duties should be there that is the receipt caretaker should not collect cash . Sales statements are not reconciled to the daily sales report. All shipping certification is not advanced to the billing section on a daily bases. An open-order files is not preserved and studied frequently in SCU Sometimes we see that one person is only responsible for taking all the orders from the customers recording all the entries and ensuring all the payments are properly made. This should not happen (Anggana, 2017) All sales and alterations are not correctly journalised abridged and dispatched to the correct accounts, transactions dont pertain to that particular period and also the there are some period adjustments References Control environment (2017).Control environment of a Company. [online] Available at: https://www.accaglobal.com/ie/en/student/exam-support-resources/fundamentals-exams-study-resources/f8/technical-articles/the-control-environment-of-a-company.html [Accessed 9th April. 2017].[1] Internal control(2017).Internal Controls. [online] Available at: https://f2.washington.edu/fm/fr/internal-controls [Accessed 9th April. 2017].[2] Ingram ,D(2017).Internal Controls. 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