The bookkeeper who has worked for a small hotel for more than 30 years is retiring. Because he was such a reliable employee, he was given more and more responsibility over the years and did virtually all of the work, such as keeping all the accounting records, approving invoices for payment, preparing checks, and, in the absence of the hotel’s owner, signing checks that needed to be sent to suppliers. His daily duties included collecting the cash at the end of the day from the front office and restaurant, clearing the machine tapes, counting and verifying cash against tapes, depositing the cash in the bank, and making the necessary entries in the hotel’s bookkeeping records. At month-end he would do the bank reconciliation.

The hotel’s owner realizes that she cannot hire and train someone to take over all the responsibilities of the retiring bookkeeper and that it would not be desirable for internal control purposes to do so. She knows that she will have to assume some of the retiring employee’s duties. She is busy already, since, as well as generally managing the hotel she does all the ordering of food supplies for the restaurant and all the ordering and receiving of bar supplies.

From an internal control point of view, discuss which of the retiring bookkeeper’s responsibilities the owner should take over while, at the same time, minimizing the amount of time this would require.

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