Question

Peter Jones, a senior accountant, and Mary Miller, a junior accountant, were the only accountants for XYZ Company, a medium-sized business. Peter had been with the company for over four years and was responsible for the Purchasing Department. Mary had been working at the company for a little over five years, and she had neither applied for a vacation nor taken any days off in the last three years. She was responsible for cash receipts and disbursements. She also collected the cash from the cash register, counted it and matched it with cash register receipts, made a record of daily receipts, and then put the money in the safe. Once a week, she would take the paperwork to her supervisor, Susan Lowe, one of the managers, who would check it. Mary later resigned from the company. At the time of her resignation, Peter was asked to handle Mary's responsibilities while the company looked for a person to replace her. Peter soon realized that there had been some manipulation of accounting records and embezzlement of funds. Investigations revealed that approximately $30,000 had been stolen. What could the management of XYZ Company have done to prevent Mary's embezzlement or to detect the fraud earlier?

Answer 1

The answer is: Establish a control system (checks and balances)

Step-by-step explanation:

Mary was in charge of all the operations regarding the use of cash in the company. The problem was that there was no one to control her work. If she prepared all the cash receipts and disbursements, she shouldn´t have been responsible for collecting the cash and matching them with the receipts she prepared herself.

The manager, Susan Lowe, couldn´t tell if cash was missing if Mary did the receipts and then matched the cash records for them. There was no way she could have checked if the amounts were correct. Peter should have been involved in this process, either by preparing the receipts or handling the cash and matching the records. That way the could have established some control system.