You have recently started in a new organisation ?Bucks Phyz? as a financial accountant. You have some early concerns over the sales processes of the company and have decided to undertake an initial internal audit of this area of the business. Using the information that you have gathered (Inforamtion gathered from case study attached below) provide a 1,500-word business report to the Finance Director that addresses the following:

1. What are the main risks involved in the Bucks Phyz?s sales process? 2. How could the internal controls of the Bucks Phyz be further developed to mitigate the identified risks in its sales process?

Internal Control Case Study Company Background Bucks Phyz is a medium sized company with turnover of $2.5m per annum. The main responsibility over the company's accounting and financial reporting is in the hands of the company's Finance Director, Lucinda. Lucinda and the Head of Operations report directly to the CEO. CEO Organisation Chart Note not all position are shown Finance Director Accounts Receivable Manager AR Specialist x3 Head of Sales Master Data Specialist x2 Sales Managers x5 Head of Operations Financial Accountant General Accounting Team x 5 Over the past two years the company has undergone a restructuring program within its sales team due to major changes within the company's operating environment. Another considerable change Bucks Phyz had faced recently was related to the turnover of key personnel. Changes in important positions are bound to have an impact on an organization as important silent information might be lost and the new employees inevitably take some time to adapt to new circumstances and organizational practices. Furthermore, as a result of the restructuring programs, some redundancies had taken place and various employees were assigned new tasks, which in some cases may have led to blurred responsibilities over some sub-processes. Bucks Phyz had also been faced by an instance of fraudulent behaviour in the company's accounting department some years before. 2 Considering the history of fraud, wide-ranging organizational changes and the challenging operating environment, Bucks Phyz is interested in evaluating the risks and the current state of internal controls in its sales process. They could not afford any unpleasant surprises or revenue leakage under the current circumstances. Modified Organisation Chart CEO Finance Director Lucinda Head of Operations Accounts Receivable Manager Head of Sales Barry Mary Sales Manager George + 4 others AR Specialists Master Data Specialists Please click on the photos to read their interview 3 Finance Director - Lucinda Lucinda joined Bucks Phyz in June last year. She has three direct reports, including you the Financial Accountant. She has overall responsibility for the Sales and Finance functions of Bucks Phyz. Lucinda works closely with the Head of Operations to ensure that strategic goals of Bucks Phyz are realised. 4 Back to Organisation Chart Master Data Specialists The Master Data Team consists of 2 master data specialists Alfred and Joy. Their responsibilities include implementing new customers into company's operative systems. These responsibilities also cover making changes to the existing master data. Joy provided the following overview of customer master maintenance at Bucks Phyz. \"The basic customer data is derived from the sales contracts (Business ID, payment method, address, contacts etc.) and entered into the billing system as a new customer profile. After this, a pricing template is created (if the customer prices differ from the standard price list) and linked to the customer profile. Creation of the price template is probably the riskiest phase of the customer data set-up since a lot of high detail data is manually entered into the system. Also, the system view is pretty \"heavy\