Identify one or more control procedures (either general or application controls, or both) that would guard against each of the following errors or problems.
a. Leslie Thomas, a secretary at the university, indicated that she had worked 40 hours on her regular time card. The university paid her for 400 hours worked that week.
b. The aging analysis indicated that the Grab and Run Electronics Company account was so far in arrears that the credit manager decided to cut off any further credit sales to the company until it cleared up its account. Yet, the following week, the manager noted that three new sales had been made to that company—all on credit.
c. The Small Company employed Mr. Fineus Eyeshade to perform all its accounts receivable data processing. Mr. Eyeshade’s 25 years with the company and his unassuming appearance helped him conceal the fact that he was embezzling cash collections from accounts receivable to cover his gambling losses at the racetrack.
d. The Blue Mountain Utility Company was having difficulty with its customer payments. The payment amounts were entered directly onto a terminal, and the transaction file thus created was used to update the customer master file. Among the problems encountered with this system were the application of customer payments to the wrong accounts and the creation of multiple customer master file records for the same account.
e. The Lands ford brothers had lived in Center County all their lives. Ben worked for the local mill in the accounts payable department, and Tom owned the local hardware store. The sheriff couldn’t believe that the brothers had created several dummy companies that sold fictitious merchandise to the mill. Ben had the mill pay for this merchandise in its usual fashion, and he wrote off the missing goods as ‘‘damaged inventory.’’