QUESTION $1$

$1.$ BACKGROUND

LearnCo. Limited $($LearnCo$.)$ is a top training provider that offers skills development training solutions to

businesses and government institutions in South Africa. The company is based in Gauteng, South Africa

and has a $30$ June $2024$ year$-$end.

LearnCo. offers a wide variety of courses in health and safety, leadership and managerial skills,

occupational health and even on emerging technologies like machine learning, robotics, coding and

artificial intelligence. The company conducts the training at the clients workplace premises. LearnCo.

employs $250$ facilitators permanently. The facilitators come from a diverse range of fields in line with the

courses offered by the company. The facilitators spend majority of their time travelling to clients throughout

the country and consequently, LearnCo. incurs a high amount of expenditure related to travel claims.

You have recently been appointed as the Financial Manager $($FM$)$ of LearnCo. The Chief Financial Officer

$($CFO$)$ is orientating you about the company and its payroll system. The payroll system is outlined below.

$2.$ PAYROLL SYSTEM

LearnCo. uses a payroll software called Revolve X$.$ Revolve X is highly advanced and is powered by

artificial intelligence $($AI$).$ Revolve X automates the majority of routine payroll$-$related transactions. These

include screening CVs submitted online, shortlisting candidates, performing monthly reconciliations, filing

electronic reports, computing the monthly payroll expense, and validating and processing input data for

the payroll. Any valid employee of LearnCo. has login access.

LearnCo. has a limited Human Resource $($HR$)$ unit in place. The HR unit currently consists of the HR

manager and two payroll clerks. The HR manager is currently responsible for conducting interviews,

completing the recruitment process and retirements. The CFO explained that other than the screening of

CVs and shortlisting of candidates against pre$-$determined criteria, Revolve X also assists the HR

manager by providing pre$-$populated templates for employee contracts. The payroll clerks are responsible

for capturing approved rates for travel claims, medical aid, provident fund and other applicable

expenditures. Revolve X also houses the employee database.

As the FM$,$ you will approve and sign off the employee contracts on behalf of the company, ensure that

applicable rates are up to date and that the schedules produced by the system are correct prior to

authorisation for payment.

$2\mathrm{.}1$ Dismissals and resignations

Dismissals and resignations occur seldomly at LearnCo. The HR manager is currently overloaded with

his duties, so management decided to move the handling of dismissals and resignations solely to the

CFO.

You were busy reviewing the payroll and noted details of two employees, with employee numbers $452901$

and $370213,$ who were dismissed in September $2023$ and December $2023,$ respectively, but were still

included in the payroll. Fortunately, no payments have been made to the employees since their dismissals.

When you followed up on this matter with the CFO, he indicated to you that he has a practice of removing

such employees from the payroll at the companys year$-$end