Siyabakulisa $($Pty$)$ Ltd is a small manufacturing company. The company$$s accounting functions are carried out by the

accounting staff consisting of the accountant, Zandile Zulu, and two clerical assistants, Mlungisi Dube and Timothy

Kazembe. The new owner of the business, Mary Kay is concerned about a number of processes followed and, not having

a business background, has asked you to review and report on certain of these processes. However, her immediate

concern is the control over the payment of creditors. To gather first$-$hand knowledge of how the system currently works,

Mary herself compiled an accurate description of the system which he has given to you.

$1.$ When an invoice is received from a supplier, it is promptly entered into the purchase journal by Mlungisi Dube and filed

alphabetically by supplier name. When the supplier$$s monthly statement arrives, Mlungisi agrees the invoices received to

the statement. She also checks that any payments that were made to the supplier by the company are reflected on the

statement.

$2.$ If an invoice reflected on the statement has not been received, Mlungisi highlights the invoice$($s$)$ and marks it

$$outstanding$$ on the statement. The full amount reflected on the statement is paid. When the outstanding invoice is

received, it is filed with the statement to which it relates and the $$outstanding$$ mark on the statement is crossed out and

dated.

$3.$ Using the statements, Mlungisi Dube then makes a list of all creditors and the amounts which they are to be paid. The

list is passed to Zandile Dube, who writes out a cheque for each creditor under R$5000.$ All cheques are carefully written

out and marked $$not transferable$.$ Zandile Dube signs each cheque and returns them with the list to Mlungisi Dube.

Mlungisi Dube confirms the amounts of each cheque and that there is a cheque for each creditor on the list under R$5$

$000.$ Mlungisi writes the cheque number next to each payment on the list and then mails the cheques to the creditors

attached to a Siyabakulisa $($Pty$)$ Ltd compliment slip. If the amount to be paid is more than R$5000,$ it is paid by EFT and

not by cheque.

$4.$ To pay creditors over R$5000,$ Zandile Dube accesses the electronic funds transfer facility on her computer and

compiles a schedule of payments to be made by EFT to creditors. She obtains this information from the creditors list

prepared by Mlungisi Dube. She carefully checks the details, namely the bank, branch code and account number of the

creditor to be paid against a hard copy listing which she keeps for all creditors.

$5.$ Mlungisi Dube passes the creditors list to Dean Johnson, as he is solely responsible for the cash payments journal,

namely writing it up$,$ posting transactions to the general ledger and reconciling the cash receipts and payments journal to

the bank statement monthly.

Required:

Identify the weaknesses in the payments system described by Mary Kay. For each weakness you identify, explain briefly

why you consider it to be a weakness $($i$.$e$.,$ what can go wrong because of this weakness$).$