Reference no: EM132462775

Auditing

Budd's Retail is a small family owned retail business. Budd's sells its products to clients through via online internet sales and through a call centre. Most of the employees are casual staff employed during the busy seasons.

The company's managers feel that on-the-job training is adequate for their needs and that the labour savings from using temporary staff are reflected in the profits Budd's has earned for the family each year.

When a customer order is received, either by phone or through the internet, the customer service representative (CSR) takes the order and checks that Budd's has the goods in stock and the correct price by checking an on-line database of inventory on hand. If the goods are available, the representative then personally phones the customer back to verify the order, including both quantity and price for each item and the extension for the entire order. The representative then prepares a sales invoice and faxes a copy to the customer.

The company has a shipping staff of 7 people and the shipping department will not ship any goods without a sales invoice initialled by the CSR. The shipping department is determined to reduce the number of shipping errors. This year, 12 shipments have occurred in which there was no sales invoice initialed and attached to the shipping bill. One of these turned out to be an urgent shipment to a long-time customer, sent on the manager's verbal instructions.

Required:

Question 1: Discuss five different types of deficiencies/problems in Budd's internal controls. Provide an example for each type of problem.

Question 2: Control deficiencies may be evident from the lack of general controls, control objectives and/or from the limitation of internal controls that are discussed in CAS 315.