Cases

In 1989, Robert Smith opened a small fruit and vegetable market in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Originally, Smith sold only produce grown on his family farm and orchard. As the market’s popularity grew, however, he added bread, canned goods, fresh meats, and a limited supply of frozen goods. Today, Smith’s Market is a full-range farmers’ market with a strong local customer base. Indeed, the market’s reputation for low prices and high quality draws customers from other Pennsylvania cities and even from the neighboring state of New Jersey. Currently Smith’s Market has forty employees. These include sales staff, shelf stockers, farm laborers, shift supervisors, and clerical staff. Recently Smith has noticed a decline in profits and sales, while his purchases of products for resale have continued to rise. Although the company does not prepare audited financial statements, Robert Smith has commissioned your public accounting firm to assess his company’s sales procedures and controls. Smith’s Market revenue cycle procedures are described in the following paragraphs:
Customers push their shopping carts to the checkout register where a clerk processes the sale. The market has four registers, but they are not dedicated to specific sales clerks because the clerks play many rolls in the dayto-day operations. In addition to checking out customers, sales clerks will stock shelves, unload delivery trucks, or perform other tasks as demand in various areas rises and falls throughout the day. This fluid work demand makes the assignment of clerks to specific registers impractical.
At the beginning of the shift, the shift supervisor collects four cash register drawers from the treasury clerk in an office in the back of the market. The drawers contain $100 each in small bills (known as float) to enable the clerks to make change. The supervisor signs a log indicating that he has taken custody of the float and places the drawers into the respective cash registers.
Sales to customers are for cash, check, or credit card only. Credit card sales are performed in the usual way. The clerk swipes the card and obtains online approval from the card issuer at the time of sale. The customer then signs the credit card voucher, which the clerk places in a special compartment of the cash register drawer. The customer receives a receipt for the purchase and a copy of the credit card voucher.
For payments by check, the clerk requires the customer to present a valid driver’s license. The license number is added to the check and the check is matched against a “black” list of customers who have previously passed bad checks. If the customer is not on the list, the check is accepted for payment and placed in the cash register drawer. The clerk then gives the customer a receipt.
The majority of sales are for cash. The clerk receives the cash from the customer, makes change, and issues a receipt for the purchase.
At the end of the shift, the supervisor returns the cash register drawers containing the cash, checks, and credit cards receipts to the treasury clerk and signs a log that he has handed in the cash drawers. The clerk later counts the cash and credit card sales. Using a standalone PC, he records the total sales amounts in the sales journal and the general Ledger Sales and Cash accounts. The Treasury clerk then prepares a deposit slip and delivers the cash, checks, and credit card vouchers to the local branch of the bank two blocks away from the market.

Required:

a. Create a data flow diagram of the current system.

b. Create a system flowchart of the existing system.

c. Analyze the internal control weaknesses in the system. Model your response according to the six categories of physical control activities specified in COSO.