Nicolas Drinks Inc. $($Nicolas$)$ manufactures fizzy drinks such as cola and lemonade as well as other soft drinks and its year end is $31$ December $2017.$ You are the audit manager of B&J CPAs LL$.$P$.$ and are currently planning the audit of Nicolas.

You attended the planning meeting with the engagement partner and finance director last week and recorded the minutes from the meeting shown below. You are reviewing these as part of the process of preparing the audit strategy.

Minutes of planning meeting for Nicolas

Nicolas$$ sales results have been strong this year and the company is forecasting revenue of $$85$ million, which is an increase from the previous year. The company has invested significantly in the cola and fizzy drinks production process at the factory. This resulted in expenditure of $$5$ million on updating, repairing and replacing a significant amount of the machinery used in the production process.

As the level of production has increased, the company has expanded the number of warehouses it uses to store inventory. It now utilizes $15$ warehouses; some are owned by Nicolas and some are rented from third parties. There will be inventory counts taking place at all $15$ of these sites at the year end.

A new accounting general ledger has been introduced at the beginning of the year, with the old and new systems being run in parallel for a period of two months.

As a result of the increase in revenue, Nicolas has recently recruited a new credit controller to chase outstanding receivables. The finance director thinks it is not necessary to continue to maintain an allowance for receivables and so has released the opening allowance of $$1\mathrm{.}5$ million.

In addition, Nicolas has incurred expenditure of $$4\mathrm{.}5$ million on developing a new brand of fizzy soft drinks. The company started this process in January $2017$ and is close to launching their new product into the market place. The finance director stated that there was a problem in November in the mixing of raw materials within the production process which resulted in a large batch of cola products tasting different. A number of these products were sold; however, due to complaints by customers about the flavour, no further sales of these goods have been made. No adjustment has been made to the valuation of the damaged inventory, which will still be held at cost of $$1$ million at the year end.

As in previous years, the management of Nicolas is due to be paid a significant annual bonus based on the value of year$-$end total assets.

The finance director has requested that the deadline for the $2017$ audit to be shortened by a month and has asked the audit engagement partner to consider if this will be possible. The partner has suggested that in order to meet this new tighter deadline the firm may carry out both an interim and final audit.

Required:

Using the minutes provided, identify and describe SEVEN audit risks, and explain the auditor$$s response to each risk, in planning the audit of Nicolas Drinks Inc. $(14$ marks$).$