• One sentence for the weakness
• One sentence for the recommendation
• One sentence for the costs and benefits. 4 Introduction
This section covers 4 areas and should be written about the organisation as a whole not just the key area you will focus on later:-
Overview of Business
(cover PIC 1.1, 1.3, 1.4)
What do they do?
How big are they?
What external relationships do they have?
Who are the key stakeholders? (key customers/ suppliers, staff, shareholders etc)
Describe the accounts department structure (include a chart as appendix)
How do they link with other departments?
Financial Statements
(cover PIC 1.2)
What Financial Statements do they produce?
Why? – What is the purpose of each?
What regulations are followed when preparing them? (internal policy, Co Act, UK
GAAP, IFS, FRSSE) Regulations
(cover PIC 2.1, 1.5)
What other regulations do they comply with? ( tax, data protection, industry specific legislation?
What happens when regulations change? Software
(cover PIC 3.3, 3.4)
Describe the accounting packages used, include details of what training is given to staff, do they have operational manuals or other written info, do they have help menus.
Why do they use these systems? What are the alternatives, are they better or worse
5 Review of XX system
This section reviews one area of the accounting system. ( Pick one where there are weaknesses with potential for errors in the accounts).
This section has three areas to be covered:-
System requirements
(Cover EAS 1.1)
Describe the system requirements. E..g if you are reviewing a sales system you would explain that the organisation wants a system that will record all sales, at the correct date, quantity, price, etc...
Describe the reports that will be useful e.g. aged debt reports, sales by product, branch, manager etc. Potential fraud
(cover EAS 1.2, 1.4, PIC 2.1,
Bibliography: – noting any material referred to – Kaplan notes, books, websites visited. • Fraud matrix (see plan) • Cost benefit analysis (see plan)