Page 177 - Accounting Information Systems

148 PART I Overview of Accounting Information Systems

and showed her the customer’s account. She said that customer said had been sent to the company. The de-
the payment for $5,000 was in fact recorded in the cus- posit ticket, however, was not stamped by the bank
tomer’s account. The payments were listed on the com- (which would have verified that the deposit had been
puter screen like this: received by the bank) and did not add up to the total at
Amount Date of Payment the bottom of the ticket (it was off by 20 cents).
At this point, being very suspicious, the auditor
$5,000 May 3
gathered all of the documents he could and left the
$5,000 May 17
company to work on the problem at home, away from
$5,000 May 23
any potential suspects. He received a call from Susan
$5,000 May 10
about four hours later saying that she felt much better.
The auditor questioned the order of the payments—why She and Debbie had gone to RadioShack (the maker
was a check supposedly received on May 10 entered in of their computer program) and RadioShack had con-
the computer after checks received on May 17 and 23? firmed Susan’s conclusion that the computer program
About 30 seconds later, the computer malfunctioned was malfunctioning. She and Debbie were planning to
and the accounts receivable file was lost. Every effort to work all weekend reentering transactions into the
retrieve the file gave the message ‘‘file not found.’’ computer. She said that everything looked fine and
About five minutes later, Debbie presented Susan not to waste more time and expense working on the
with a copy of a bank deposit ticket dated May 10 with problem.
several checks listed on it, including the check that the The auditor felt differently. How do you feel?

Performance of Key Functions by Individual(s)
John, president
Susan, vice president
Tommy, son and shipping manager
Debbie, office worker

Individual(s) Performing Task
Most of the Time Sometimes

1. Receiving order from customers John All others
2. Overseeing production of crabmeat John or Tommy —
3. Handling shipping Tommy John
4. Billing customers (entering sales into accounts receivable program) Debbie Susan
5. Opening mail John All others
6. Preparing bank deposit tickets and making bank deposits Susan or Debbie All others
7. Recording receipt of cash and checks (entering collections of
accounts receivable into accounts receivable program) Debbie Susan
8. Preparing checks (payroll checks and payments of accounts payable) Susan or Debbie —
9. Signing checks John —
10. Preparing bank reconciliations John —
11. Preparing daily sales reports showing sales by type of product Susan —
12. Summarizing daily sales reports to obtain monthly sales report by type —
of product Susan or Debbie
13. Running summaries of AR program, AP program, and payroll program —
at month-end and inputting summaries into GL program Susan or Debbie
14. Analyzing trial balance at month-end and analyzing open balances in —
accounts receivable and accounts payable Susan