[Da Bears]

Have no idea what’s expected of me for written communication on BEC, below is one of the sample tests written communication tabs. Can you tell me if my format is what they’re looking for and if this is good? Feel free to say whatever, I can take it! haha Thanks!

SkyView Inc., a small startup company, has hired you as a consultant to assess its financial systems and related processes. During your review, you learn that the company’s accountant is responsible for providing general ledger access to others in the company, processing all financial transactions in the general ledger, and printing checks. The president of the company must authorize write-offs in the system, but the accountant has access to the president’s username and password.

Prepare a memo to SkyView’s president assessing these responsibilities in the context of segregation of duties. Also address the possibility of the accountant committing fraud.

Type your communication in the response area below the horizontal line using the word processor provided.

My Response below:

The purpose of this memo is to inform you about the responsibilities of the company’s accountant and segregation of their responsibilities to effectively reduce the risk of fraud that could be perpetrated by the position mentioned. As the current system stands, there are evident segregation of duties conflicts, which in turn could be used to commit fraudulent activities and conceal them.

The accountant has duties of recording of the general ledger and custody of checks. In addition, the accountant effectively has the authorization capability in regard to write offs of accounts receivable due to their access to the president’s username and password. This combination of duties could allow the accountant to misappropriate the company’s assets through payment to himself, disguised as payment to a vendor. Also, the accountant has the capability to misappropriate the company’s assets by shipping company goods to themselves and writing the customer account off via the ability to authorize write offs by having access to the president’s username and password.

The combinations of authorization of write offs, recording of the general ledger, and custody of checks present themselves the opportunity for fraud by the company’s accountant and the concealment of said fraud. These segregation of duties issue are of utmost importance to be investigated and appropriately fixed to mitigate the potential act of fraud and concealment thereafter. I can not stress enough the importance of fixing these incompatible duties and hope you do also.

Sincerely,

CPA Exam Candidate

FAR- 8/14/12 91
AUD- 10/16/12 88
BEC- 11/07/12 92
REG- 01/05/13 86
NIU CPA Review

[CPA Hopeful]

Sounds good to me. I always add at the end to please contact me at your earliest convenience if you would like to discuss this issue further. Nice job!

FAR - 81
REG - 75
AUD - 85
BEC - 79

Thank goodness it's over... Now on to the next step...

[mmcgrad1]

Get rid of the last two lines with your name and “Sincerely,” they are not recommended for a memo.

Personally, I would break the middle paragraph into two separate paragraphs of 2-3 sentences each.

I agree with mentioning contacting you if there are any questions.

NIU CPA Review Correspondence is awesome!

I passed all four sections on the first attempt

[Da Bears]

Thanks peeps. Haven't written a memo in awhile and I hate writing, hence accounting haha I agree with the contact me garbage at the bottom rather than sincerely, need to get familiar with the memo format again

FAR- 8/14/12 91
AUD- 10/16/12 88
BEC- 11/07/12 92
REG- 01/05/13 86
NIU CPA Review

[Author]

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