21. Contributions to a nonprofit organization have been constant for the past 3 years. The audit committee has become concerned that the president may have embarked on a scheme in which some of the contributions from many sustaining members have been redirected to other organizations. The audit committee suspects that the scheme may involve taking major contributions and depositing them in alternative accounts or soliciting contributions to be made in the name of another organization. Which of the following procedures should be most effective in detecting the existence of such a fraud?
A. Use generalized audit software to take a sample of pledged receipts not yet collected and confirm the amounts due with the donors.
B. Take a sample that includes all large donors for the past 3 years and a statistical sample of others and request a confirmation of total contributions made to the organization or to affiliated organizations.
C. Take a discovery sample of cash receipts and confirm the amounts of the receipts with the donors. Investigate any differences.
D. Use analytical review procedures to compare contributions generated with those of other comparable institutions over the same period of time. If the amount is significantly less, take a detailed sample of cash receipts and trace to the bank statements.
Answer (B) is correct.
REQUIRED: The procedure most effective for detecting misdirected contributions.
DISCUSSION: The engagement objective is to determine whether contributions have been wrongly directed to alternate accounts or solicited for other organizations. Consequently, an appropriate procedure is to send confirmation requests to donors. However, testing transactions recorded by the accounting system will not result in sufficient information about solicitation of contributions for other organizations. The internal auditor must therefore make inquiries of the sustaining members about such solicitations
Answer (A) is incorrect. Sampling amounts listed as unpaid does not provide evidence about contributions previously paid or shifted to another organization.
Answer (C) is incorrect. Sampling cash receipts that have been recorded by the organization provides no evidence about unrecorded receipts or contributions diverted elsewhere.
Answer (D) is incorrect. Analytical procedures are of limited use. Also, the follow-up procedure only provides evidence that recorded receipts were also deposited.