ACCA AA Syllabus D. Audit Evidence - Payables - Trade - Past Papers ^{11 / 18}

You are an audit supervisor of Halley & Co and you are reviewing the documentation describing Comet Publishing Co’s purchases and payables system in preparation for the interim and final audit for the year ending 30 September 20X7. The company is a retailer of books and has ten stores and a central warehouse, which holds the majority of the company’s inventory.

Your firm has audited Comet Publishing Co for a number of years and as such, audit documentation is available from the previous year’s file, including internal control flowcharts and detailed purchases and payables system notes. As far as you are aware, Comet Publishing Co’s system of internal control has not changed in the last year. The audit manager is keen for the team to utilise existing systems documentation in order to ensure audit efficiency. An extract from the existing systems notes is provided below.

Extract of purchases and payables system
Store managers are responsible for ordering books for their shop. It is not currently possible for store managers to request books from any of the other nine stores. Customers who wish to order books, which are not in stock at the branch visited, are told to contact the other stores directly or visit the company website. As the inventory levels fall in a store, the store manager raises a purchase requisition form, which is sent to the central warehouse. If there is insufficient inventory held, a supplier requisition form is completed and sent to the purchase order clerk, Oliver Dancer, for processing. He sends any orders above $1,000 for authorisation from the purchasing director.

Receipts of goods from suppliers are processed by the warehouse team, who agree the delivery to the purchase order, checking quantity and quality of goods and complete a sequentially numbered goods received note (GRN). The GRNs are sent to the accounts department every two weeks for processing.

On receipt of the purchase invoice from the supplier, an accounts clerk matches it to the GRN. The invoice is then sent to the purchase ordering clerk, Oliver, who processes it for payment. The finance director is given the total amount of the payments list, which she authorises and then processes the bank payments. Due to staff shortages in the accounts department, supplier statement reconciliations are no longer performed.

Other information – conflict of interest
Halley & Co has recently accepted the audit engagement of a new client, Edmond Co, who is the main competitor of Comet Publishing Co. The finance director of Comet Publishing Co has enquired how Halley & Co will keep information obtained during the audit confidential.

Required:
(d) Describe substantive procedures the auditor should perform to obtain sufficient and appropriate evidence in relation to Comet Publishing Co’s purchases and other expenses. (5 marks)

You are an audit senior of Viola & Co and are currently conducting the audit of Poppy Co for the year ended 30 June 20X6.

Materiality has been set at $50,000, and you are carrying out the detailed substantive testing on the year-end payables balance. The audit manager has emphasised that understatement of the trade payables balance is a significant audit risk.

Below is an extract from the list of supplier statements as at 30 June 20X6 held by the company and corresponding payables ledger balances at the same date along with some commentary on the noted differences:

Carnation Co
The difference in the balance is due to an invoice which is under dispute due to faulty goods which were returned on 29 June 20X6.

Lily Co
The difference in the balance is due to the supplier statement showing an invoice dated 28 June 20X6 for $70,000 which was not recorded in the financial statements until after the year end. The payables clerk has advised the audit team that the invoice was not received until 2 July 20X6.

The audit manager has asked you to review the full list of trade payables and select balances on which supplier statement reconciliations will be performed.

Which of the following items should you select for testing?

(1) Suppliers with material balances at the year end
(2) Suppliers which have a high volume of business with Poppy Co
(3) Major suppliers with nil balances at the year end
(4) Major suppliers where the statement agrees to the ledger

A. 1 only
B. 1, 2 and 3 only
C. 2 and 4 only
D. 1, 2, 3 and 4

You are an audit senior of Viola & Co and are currently conducting the audit of Poppy Co for the year ended 30 June 20X6.

Materiality has been set at $50,000, and you are carrying out the detailed substantive testing on the year-end payables balance. The audit manager has emphasised that understatement of the trade payables balance is a significant audit risk.

Below is an extract from the list of supplier statements as at 30 June 20X6 held by the company and corresponding payables ledger balances at the same date along with some commentary on the noted differences:

Carnation Co
The difference in the balance is due to an invoice which is under dispute due to faulty goods which were returned on 29 June 20X6.

Lily Co
The difference in the balance is due to the supplier statement showing an invoice dated 28 June 20X6 for $70,000 which was not recorded in the financial statements until after the year end. The payables clerk has advised the audit team that the invoice was not received until 2 July 20X6.

Which of the following audit procedures should be performed in relation to the balance with Lily Co to determine if the payables balance is understated?

A. Inspect the goods received note to determine when the goods were received
B. Inspect the purchase order to confirm it is dated before the year end
C. Review the post year-end cashbook for evidence of payment of the invoice
D. Send a confirmation request to Lily Co to confirm the outstanding balance

You are an audit senior of Viola & Co and are currently conducting the audit of Poppy Co for the year ended 30 June 20X6.

Materiality has been set at $50,000, and you are carrying out the detailed substantive testing on the year-end payables balance. The audit manager has emphasised that understatement of the trade payables balance is a significant audit risk.

Below is an extract from the list of supplier statements as at 30 June 20X6 held by the company and corresponding payables ledger balances at the same date along with some commentary on the noted differences:

Carnation Co
The difference in the balance is due to an invoice which is under dispute due to faulty goods which were returned on 29 June 20X6.

Lily Co
The difference in the balance is due to the supplier statement showing an invoice dated 28 June 20X6 for $70,000 which was not recorded in the financial statements until after the year end. The payables clerk has advised the audit team that the invoice was not received until 2 July 20X6.

Which of the following audit procedures should be carried out to confirm the balance owing to Carnation Co?

(1) Review post year-end credit notes for evidence of acceptance of return
(2) Inspect pre year-end goods returned note in respect of the items sent back to the supplier
(3) Inspect post year-end cash book for evidence that the amount has been settled

A. 1, 2 and 3
B. 1 and 3 only
C. 1 and 2 only
D. 2 and 3 only

(b) Hawthorn Enterprises Co (Hawthorn) manufactures and distributes fashion clothing to retail stores. Its year end was 31 March 2015. You are the audit manager and the year-end audit is due to commence shortly. The following three matters have been brought to your attention.

(i) Supplier statement reconciliations
Hawthorn receives monthly statements from its main suppliers and although these have been retained, none have been reconciled to the payables ledger as at 31 March 2015. The engagement partner has asked the audit senior to recommend the procedures to be performed on supplier statements. (3 marks)

Required:
Describe substantive procedures you would perform to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence in relation to the above three matters.

Note: The mark allocation is shown against each of the three matters above.

Greystone Co is a retailer of ladies clothing and accessories. It operates in many countries around the world and has expanded steadily from its base in Europe. Its main market is aimed at 15 to 35 year olds and its prices are mid to low range. The company’s year end was 30 September 2010.

In the past the company has bulk ordered its clothing and accessories twice a year. However, if their goods failed to meet the key fashion trends then this resulted in significant inventory write downs. As a result of this the company has recently introduced a just in time ordering system.

The fashion buyers make an assessment nine months in advance as to what the key trends are likely to be, these goods are sourced from their suppliers but only limited numbers are initially ordered.

Greystone Co has an internal audit department but at present their only role is to perform regular inventory counts at the stores.

Ordering process

Each country has a purchasing manager who decides on the initial inventory levels for each store, this is not done in conjunction with store or sales managers. These quantities are communicated to the central buying department at the head office in Europe.

An ordering clerk amalgamates all country orders by specified regions of countries, such as Central Europe and North America, and passes them to the purchasing director to review and authorise.

As the goods are sold, it is the store manager’s responsibility to re-order the goods through the purchasing manager; they are prompted weekly to review inventory levels as although the goods are just in time, it can still take up to four weeks for goods to be received in store.

It is not possible to order goods from other branches of stores as all ordering must be undertaken through the purchasing manager. If a customer requests an item of clothing, which is unavailable in a particular store, then the customer is provided with other branch telephone numbers or recommended to try the company website.

Goods received and Invoicing

To speed up the ordering to receipt of goods cycle, the goods are delivered directly from the suppliers to the individual stores.

On receipt of goods the quantities received are checked by a sales assistant against the supplier’s delivery note, and then the assistant produces a goods received note (GRN). This is done at quiet times of the day so as to maximise sales. The checked GRNs are sent to head office for matching with purchase invoices.

As purchase invoices are received they are manually matched to GRNs from the stores, this can be a very time consuming process as some suppliers may have delivered to over 500 stores.

Once the invoice has been agreed then it is sent to the purchasing director for authorisation. It is at this stage that the invoice is entered onto the purchase ledger.

Required:

Describe substantive procedures the auditor should perform on the year-end trade payables of Greystone Co.  (5 marks)

Identify and explain FOUR assertions relevant to accounts payable at the year-end date. (6 marks)

Westra Co assembles mobile telephones in a large factory. Each telephone contains up to 100 different parts, with each part being obtained from one of 50 authorised suppliers.

Like many companies, Westra’s accounting systems are partly manual and partly computerised. In overview the systems include:

(i) Design software

(ii) A computerised database of suppliers (bespoke system written in-house at Westra)

(iii) A manual system for recording goods inwards and transferring information to the accounts department

(iv) A computerised payables ledger maintained in the accounts department (purchased off-the-shelf and used with no program amendments)

(v) Online payment to suppliers, also in the accounts department

(vi) A computerised general ledger which is updated by the payables ledger

Mobile telephones are assembled in batches of 10,000 to 50,000 telephones. When a batch is scheduled for production, a list of parts is produced by the design software and sent, electronically, to the ordering department. Staff 
in the ordering department use this list to place orders with authorised suppliers.

Orders can only be sent to suppliers on the suppliers’ database. Orders are sent using electronic data interchange (EDI) and confirmed by each supplier using the same system. The list of parts and orders are retained on the computer in an ‘orders placed’ file, which is kept in date sequence.

Parts are delivered to the goods inwards department at Westra. All deliveries are checked against the orders placed file before being accepted. A hand-written pre-numbered goods received note (GRN) is raised in the goods inwards department showing details of the goods received with a cross-reference to the date of the order.

The top copy of the GRN is sent to the accounts department and the second copy retained in the goods inwards department. The orders placed file is updated with the GRN number to show that the parts have been received.

Paper invoices are sent by all suppliers following dispatch of goods. Invoices are sent to the accounts department, where they are stamped with a unique ascending number. Invoice details are matched to the GRN, which is then 
attached to the invoice. Invoice details are then entered into the computerised payables ledger. The invoice is signed by the accounts clerk to confirm entry into the payables ledger. Invoices are then retained in a temporary file in number order while awaiting payment.

After 30 days, the payables ledger automatically generates a computerised list of payments to be made, which is sent electronically to the chief accountant. The chief accountant compares this list to the invoices, signs each invoice to 
indicate approval for payment, and then forwards the electronic payments list to the accounts assistant. The assistant uses online banking to pay the suppliers. The electronic payments list is filed in month order on the computer.

Required:

List the audit procedures you should perform on the trade payables balance in Westra Co’s financial statements. For each procedure, explain the purpose of that procedure. (8 Marks)