A computer parts manufacturing company's sales and accounts receivable process:

1. Customers' orders are received via the companies' online order system and printed daily by the customer service officer (CSO). All customers have their own username and password.

2. The CSO manually transfers the order details to a pre-numbered quadruplicate sales order form. One copy of the sales order is marked original and the other three as 'copy number 1, 2 and 3' respectively.

3. The CSO then check the items ordered are in stock, if not they will be noted.

4. All copies of the sales order are then sent to the credit department.

5. The credit department verifies that the customer's purchase is within the credit limits and stamps all copies as approved. If not, the credit officers assess if the customer can exceed the current limit or not. If exceeding the limit is acceptable, the credit manager will stamp and sign all copies authorising the order.

6. The credit department then forwards the original sales order to the accounts receivable area, one copy to the warehouse, one copy to the dispatch area and retains and files the final third copy in alphabetical order.

7. The warehouse will only provide a picking slip in triplicate, select and box the order, on receipt of the authorised sales order. The number of boxes in the order is noted on the bottom of the picking slip.

8. The warehouse manager or the supervisor will then verify the inventory boxed to the picking slip, sign the picking slip, and send one copy of the slip with the boxes to the dispatch area. The other copy of the picking slip is filed in date order.

9. If the inventory is out of stock, and not previously identified by the CSO, the warehouse manager will note 'item out of stock' on the picking slip and its copy of the sales order

10. The dispatch area confirms the content and the number of boxes to its copy of the picking slip and seals the boxes.

11. The supervisor of the dispatch area completes the pre-numbered delivery documentation in triplicate and arranges for the boxes to be collected and delivered by one of two transport companies they usually use.

12. The original copy of the delivery documentation is sent to the customer with the delivery order, one copy is sent to the accounts receivable area, and the other copy is filed in date order.

13. Once the delivery documentation is received in the accounts area, the accounts receivable officer crosschecks the delivery documentation, the picking slip, and the sales order.

14. If there are no discrepancies, the receivables officer then transfers the sales order details, including the sales order number, and item prices from the price list into the computer.

15. The system will automatically sequentially number the invoice and calculate the total price for the number of items, goods and services tax (GST) and the total the invoice.

16. The invoice is then printed in triplicate; the original is mailed to the customer and one copy is retained in alphabetical order in the accounts department.

17. The accounting records, the individual customer's receivables accounts, the Accounts Receivable Master File and the inventory accounts are automatically updated when the invoices are processed.

Identify and explain:

a. 10 control strengths over the company's sales and receivables process.

b. a test of control for 5 of the 10 controls identified above.

c. 3 audit assertions most at risk.

d. 5 control weaknesses and the potential impact on the audit assertions.

e. 5 control improvements that could be implemented.