The following describes the cash receipts process for a company. The mailroom staff consists of 35 clerks who receive and sort the general mail. Included in the mail are envelopes containing customer checks and remittance advices, which the clerks open to verify that the checks are signed and are constant in amount with the remittance advice. The checks and remittance advices are organised into batches and sent to the AR department, where the AR clerk reviews them for correctness and posts them to the AR sub-ledger. The clerk then prepares two copies of a remittance list. One of these is filed in the department along with the remittance advice and the other is sent to the cash receipts department with the checks.

Upon receipt of the checks and remittance list, the cash receipts clerk reconciles the documents and post the checks to the cash receipts journal. At the end of the day, the clerk prepares a deposit slip and sends it along with the checks to the bank. Finally, the clerk summarises the batch of cash receipts transactions and posts them to the general ledger AR control account and the cash account.

1. Assess the risks that are inherent in the current system configuration.

[5 Marks]

2. Identify FIVE (5) controls that are needed to reduce or eliminate the risks identified in Question (a).

[10 Marks]