Office Design Inc. (ODI) has been your audit client for five years. ODI designs and
sells office furniture, such as desks, cabinets, and couches used in reception areas. ODI
has sales in Canada and the U.S., with five distribution locations, where furniture is
available to prospective purchasers to try out before purchasing. These locations are in
Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, New York and Chicago. The company uses custom
designed software for its order processing and sales, kept current by one of the five
information systems personnel.
The Vice President Finance is new. Executive management is paid based upon a salary
and a bonus based upon the annual net income of ODI. Unfortunately, the accounting
staff at head office (Montreal) has been downsized from ten people to six due to a
recent slowdown in sales. Your review of the aged accounts receivable trial balance
revealed that one third of the accounts have been outstanding for more than one year.
ODI’s profits have declined substantially from last year. The line of credit and bank
loans are at their maximum, and the company is considering selling its U.S. operations
to provide cash flow.
Prior year working papers revealed few errors and that you considered management
integrity to be good. However, due to segregation issues, you did not rely on the
internal controls in the prior year.
Required:
A) What issues in corporate governance and in the control environment affect your
assessment of internal controls for revenue? How does this affect the decision to
conduct substantive testing (i.e. exclusion of tests of controls)?
B) What is the likely assessment of computer general controls? How does this affect the
type of audit testing conducted at ODI?