All orders are phoned in to a central order-taking unit in McComb, Mississippi. Sometimes the people working the phones to take orders have difficulty conversing with folks from other parts of the country; a down East accent from Massachusetts is much different from a deep South accent in Mississippi. Most of the time, though, the people are able to communicate.

Once the order has been taken, the order taker transcribes it from the plain paper to a preprinted order form, then goes over to the other side of the room and puts the filled-out preprinted order form into a wire basket. I say that these order forms are preprinted, but they are not prenumbered.

A few years ago, a former controller had the idea that the ordering process should be computerized, so twice a day, someone comes from the MIS unit, collects the preprinted order forms, and takes them to another unit where the data is keyed from the paper order forms into the order entry system. Data entry personnel have a work quota, so they quickly enter each order, then tear up the preprinted order forms. If anyone else needs to see the filled-out preprinted order forms, that's just too bad. Customers sometimes complain about orders which were not filled correctly, but management figures that that is just part of the cost of doing business.

Every order is shipped if the customer has ever bought from the company before placing this order. Management figures that this speeds the processing of the person's orders.

a. What internal control weaknesses do you see in this system?

b. What are the potential effects of these weaknesses?

c. What do you recommend instead (that is, if you have such a recommendation)?