Internal control has four basic purposes: safeguarding assets, ensuring financial statement reliability, promoting operational efficiency, and encouraging compliance with management’s directives. Consider each of the internal control procedures described below. For each procedure, indicate which purpose(s) of internal control it is designed to address.
a. Conducting surprise cash counts.
b. Creating a policy manual.
c. Creating separate departments for purchasing inventory and receiving inventory.
d. Deleting an employee’s computer account when the employee retires or is fired.
e. Employing internal auditors.
f. Installing virus cleaning software on all computers.
g. Locking filing cabinets with sensitive documents.
h. Performing background checks on employees.
i. Reconciling the bank statement monthly.
j. Requiring all management employees to take annual vacations.