Background

Titan Sports Memorabilia is a small firm located in South Brisbane. The company specializes in providing its customers with authentic yet affordable sports memorabilia from their favorite players and teams, past and present. The firm was established 2 years ago and recently experiencing operational inefficiencies and accounting errors. You have been hired to evaluate Titan's business process which is described in the following paragraphs. Business Processes At Titan, the revenue processes are conducted by five employees. The five employees are the sales staff, warehouse staff, junior accountant, senior accountant, and the collection clerk. A description of their duties is as follows: The sales staff receives customer orders by phone. She prepares a four copy sales order form. She files one copy, one copy goes to the warehouse staff, one copy goes to the junior accountant, and one copy is mailed to the customer. After receiving a sales order, the warehouse staff prepares a packing slip, takes the proper items from the warehouse, and ships them with the packing slip enclosed. The sales order is stamped with the ship date, and the shipping log is updated. The sales order is filed by customer number. After receiving the sales order from the sales staff, the junior accountant reviews the customer records and either approves or disapproves customer credit. If he approves the customer's credit, he stamps the sales order "approved" and forward to senior accountant. The junior accountant prepares a three copy invoice. One copy is mailed to the customer, one copy is forwarded to the senior accountant, and one copy goes to the collection clerk. The senior accountant matches the approved sales order to the invoice and files these by customer number. After receiving a copy of the invoice, the collection clerk posts the sale to the sales journal and the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger. Daily totals from the sales journal are sent to the junior accountant, and he posts these sales summaries to the general ledger. A mail clerk forwards customer checks to the collection clerk. The collection clerk stamps the check "For Deposit Only" and records it in the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger. The check is also recorded in the cash receipts journal by the collection clerk. The collection clerk deposits checks in the bank account weekly. A weekly summary of cash receipts is forwarded to senior accountant, and she records these summaries in the general ledger.

Required

a. Draw two process maps to reflect the sales processes and collection processes at Titan.

b. Describe any weaknesses in these processes or internal controls. As you identify weaknesses, also describe your suggested improvement.

c. Draw two new process maps that include your suggested improvements. One process map should depict the sales processes, and the second process map should depict the cash collection processes.