Subject: Accounting Information System

CASE STUDY 2: BRILLIANT BOOK STORE BERHAD PARTA Brilliant Book Stores Berhad (BBB) is one of the leading books wholesaler in Malaysia. It is best known for its book supplies in bulk quantities as well as being involved in the printing, publishing and distribution of books. BBB supplies a range of books to academic institutions, libraries and book stores nationwide. BBB product line includes items such as academic books, encyclopedias, technical books, fictional books, novels and children books. BBB has also branched out into the online book wholesaling in 2018, with the BBB Online portal providing a platform for trade customers to have a safe and easy way of purchasing products from BBB. The company employs a combination of manual procedures and networked accounting system with distributed terminals in several departments. After years of satisfactory performance, however, BBB is now experiencing operational inefficiencies and accounting errors. Your firm has been hired to evaluate BBB's business processes and internal controls. BBB's Sales Order System BBB's revenue process is initiated when a trade customer places an order either online, by mail, or through a telephone representative. A clerk in the sales department receives a customer order by mail and telephone will enter the information into a computer terminal that is networked to a centralized computer program in the computer operations department. On the other hand, online orders are entered automatically by the system, while mail and phone orders are manually entered. In both cases, when the customer order is entered, a computer program automatically edits the transactions for data entry errors and checks the customers' credit by referencing a credit history file. If credit is approved, the sales process continues. For approved orders, the system creates sale transactions into the digital sales journal from his terminal. The clerk then prints four copies of sales order and files one copy of the sales order in the sales department. A second copy is sent to the billing department, where it is further processed. A third copy is sent to the warehouse. A final copy is sent to the customer to notify that the order has been received and processed. The warehouse clerk uses the sales orders as a stock release document to pick up the requested items from the shelves. The clerk manually prepares a bill of lading and a packaging slip, which accompany the goods to the carrier. The warehouse clerk accesses the computer terminal and creates a digital shipping notice for the billing department. Finally, the clerk files the sales order copy in the department. The billing department clerk accesses the digital shipping notice on his terminal and reconciles the hard-copy sales order. He then prints out two copies of the invoice. One copy is sent to the accounts receivable department and the other is sent to the customer as a bill. The clerk then files the sales order copy in the department Upon receipt of the hard-copy invoice, the accounts receivable clerk creates a digital record of AR subsidiary ledger from his terminal. The clerk then files the invoice copy in the department. BBB's Cash Receipt Procedures Customer payments and remittance advice come into the mailroom. A clerk opens and separates the documents and later sends the remittance advice to accounts receivable and sends the checks to the cash receipts department. Upon receipt of the remittance advice, the accounts receivable clerk accesses the customer's account in the digital AR ledger from a terminal and updates the respective customer's account balance accordingly. The clerk then files the remittance advice in the departments. The cash receipt clerk receives the checks and posts them to the cash receipt journal from his or her terminal. The clerk then manually prepares a hard-copy deposit slip and sends it with the checks to the bank. Finally, at the end of each day, the system prepares batch totals of all sales and cash receipts transactions and posts them automatically to the respective control accounts in the digital general ledger REQUIRED : (a) Identify at least FIVE (5) possible weaknesses in the BBB revenue cycle examined and provide an appropriate argument of each weakness highlighted. Elaborate your