Background

After working at several accounting and consultancy firms for more than a decade, you have recently decided to start your own consultancy business. A friend of your wife introduces you to Paradise Industries, a manufacturer of high-precision machine tools based at Adelaide. Paradise Industries employs a centralized computer system with distributed terminals in the departments. The company recently have a number of operational problems and the managing director of the company has engaged you to assess its systems and processes.

Expenditure Cycle

When an inventory item falls to the recorder point, a purchase requisition is automatically generated and printed on the terminal in the purchasing department. The purchasing clerk select suppliers and prepare a purchase order. One copy of the purchase order is sent to the supplier and another copy is sent to the receiving department. The purchasing clerk then adds a record to the open/closed purchase order file through an update program in the data processing department.

When the receiving clerk receives the delivery from the supplier, the clerk reconciles the items with the packing slip and the purchasing order. After the reconciliation, the receiving clerk prepares a hard-copy receiving report recording the quantity and quality of the goods received. One copy of the receiving report accompanies the items to the warehouse and another copy is filed in the receiving department. Using the department terminal, the receiving clerk adds a record to the digital receiving report file. The system then automatically closes the purchase order. Upon receiving the items, the warehouse clerk updates the inventory subsidiary ledger through the terminal in the warehouse.

When the supplier's invoice arrives, the accounts payable clerk adds a record to the supplier invoice file, which in turn triggers the system to automatically set up a liability in the accounts payable subsidiary ledger based on the financial information contained in the invoice. The system then automatically updates all affected general ledger accounts.

The computer system scans the accounts payable subsidiary ledger every day for items due to be paid and print the cheque. The cheque is sent to the supplier and a copy is sent to cash disbursements where it is filed. The system then adds a record to the cheque register file and removes the liability in the accounts payable subsidiary ledger. Finally, the system automatically updates the general ledger accounts.

Conversion Cycle

The production process is triggered by a quarterly forecast of expected sales, which goes to the production planning and control clerk. From the clerk's terminal, the production planning and control clerk updates the digital production schedule to include the batches of products to be produced during the next quarter. Drawing upon the bill of materials and routing sheet files, the system automatically prepares the digital work orders move tickets and material requisitions and sends them to the work centre supervisor's terminal on a weekly basis.

The work centre supervisor accesses the digital documents and print hard-copy work orders, move tickets and material requisitions. The supervisor distributes the move tickets and two copies of the material requisitions to each work centre in the production process.

Staff members submit the two copies of material requisitions to the warehouse in exchange for the materials. If additional materials are needed beyond the standard quantity, the supervisor issues additional material requisitions. As the production is completed in each work centre, the staff members send the move ticket to cost accounting to the mark the completion of that phase of the production batch. Staff members also record labour time spent on each batch on hard-copy job cards, which they send to cost accounting. Finally, upon completion of the batch, the work centre supervisor closes the open work order file.

The warehouse clerk files one copy of the material requisition and updates the materials inventory file from the terminal in the warehouse office. The clerk then sends a second copy of the material requisition to cost accounting. At the end of the day, the clerk prepares a digital journal voucher and posts it to the general ledger control accounts.

The cost accounting clerk accesses the digital work orders and set up a work-in-process account for the production batch. The clerk also receives move tickets, job tickets, and material requisitions throughout the production process and use the documents to post in work-in-process subsidiary ledger. At the end of each day, the cost accounting clerk prepares a digital journal voucher and posts to general ledger control accounts to reflect the status of work-in-process and to record transfers of work-in-process to finished good inventory.

Required

Prepare a report to the managing director of Paradise Industries to evaluate the processes, risks and internal controls for Paradise Industries' expenditure and conversion cycle. In your report, you need to include the following items:

• System flow chart of expenditure cycle
• System flow chart of conversion cycle
• Analysis of physical internal control weaknesses in the expenditure cycle
• Analysis of the risks exist in the conversion cycle and the changes needed to reduce the risks

The report should be grounded on relevant literature and all references must be properly cited and included in the reference list.

Marking criteria

Marking criteria

Weighting

System flow chart of expenditure cycle 2%

System flow chart of conversion cycle 2%

Analysis of physical internal control weaknesses in the expenditure cycle 3%

Analysis of the risks exist in the conversion cycle and the changes needed to reduce the risks 9%

Presentation 2%

Research quality 2%

TOTAL Weight 20%