The recorded balance in the cash account at the company you are auditing is $22,000, and you have set materiality at $75,000. It is close to the end of the audit and you have not found any material misstatements that have not been corrected by the client. You know that the client keeps no cash on the premises, except for a small petty cash fund in the office of $75. You have also learned that the client deals with two different banks, including one U.S. dollar account for foreign transactions throughout the year. Only the controller, treasurer, and two members of the board of directors are authorized to sign cheques on behalf of the company. Typically all cheques are signed by either the controller or the treasurer. The directors have no functional responsibilities and their

authority to sign cheques is only to be exercised in special situations, none of which arose in the year.

The working papers prepared by the auditor (from the same firm) for the previous year's audit of cash show that she reviewed a sample of the cancelled cheques to verify that all were signed by either the controller or the treasurer, and then obtained copies of the monthly bank reconciliations, checked the calculations, and verified a sample of the cheques and deposits. No errors of any kind were found, and as the cash balance was small last year (well below materiality), the auditor accepted the cash balance as recorded.

Required:

a. Design three additional substantive audit procedures (other than analytical procedures) that you would perform for the cash account in the above situation.

b. If the balance in the cash account at year end is below materiality, explain whether you would consider this company's cash account to be an important account to test with audit procedures.