4-1 Discussion: Internal Controls Over Assets

Companies lose millions of dollars each year through employee theft and fraud. To prevent this, internal controls are implemented. We will examine the types of controls companies use, and discuss what happens when these controls are missing.

Consider this scenario: You own a small business with 25 employees. In your initial post, explain which internal controls you would use to protect your assets and ensure that your financial statements are accurate.

In your responses to your peers, critique their internal control proposals and provide constructive suggestions for improving them. What aspects or risks might they have overlooked? What would you suggest to make their proposals more effective and feasible?

how can respond to this person

Ensuring your company is safe is the main thing we as business owners worry about. From our idea to the company's funds being a business owner is like parenting in my opinion. As a CEO of 25 employees I would definitely have a few security controls in place to protect the company, the employees and myself.

First I would ensure each employee were trained in all areas needed in their specific departments to allow all personnel to feel included in the business dealings. With this in place delegating and rotating duties is very possible. All employees will have mandatory PTO and this time would need to be used before the end of the year so that all end of year documents can be examined by different members of my staff as well as myself.

My main goal for returning to school was to make sure I knew the basics of accounting and how to sufficiently run my own company so that I never have to soley rely on others to maintain or correct my business activities and expenses. However as the business owner there is no way to do everything yourself but you can have a say in everything. Separating the operations when it comes to orders and logistics will stop any wrong doings and under handed transactions from happening or being discovered before much damage can take place.

Lastly keeping all financial books, stamps, checkbooks, routing and accounting information as secure as possible. Not everyone should have access and I would make time to look over all checks and stamp/sign them before they are sent out. I believe there are some things that shouldn't be delegated to other people.