Supervision.Some firms have too few employees to achieve an adequate separation of functions and must rely on supervision as a compensating control. By closely supervising employees who perform potentially incompatible functions, a firm can compensate for the exposure inherent in a system.
Supervision can also provide control in systems that are properly segregated. For example, the mailroom is a point of exposure for any firm. The individual who opens the mail has access both to cash (the asset) and to the remittance advice (the record of the transaction). A dishonest employee may use this opportunity to steal the check, cash it, and destroy the remittance advice, thus leaving no evidence of the transaction. Ultimately, this sort of fraud will come to light when the customer receives another bill and,
in response, produces the canceled check. However, by the time the firm gets to the bottom of this problem, the perpetrator may have committed the crime many times over and left the organization. Detecting crimes after the fact accomplishes little. Prevention is the best solution. The deterrent effect of supervision can provide an effective preventive control.
Independent Verification.The purpose of independent verification is to review the work performed by others at key junctures in the process to identify and correct errors.Following are two examples in the revenue cycle:
1. The shipping department verifies that the goods sent from the warehouse are correct in type and quantity. Before the goods are sent to the customer, the stock release document and the packing slip are reconciled to identify discrepancies.
2. The billing department reconciles the shipping notice with the sales invoice to ensure that customers are billed only for the items and quantities that were actually shipped.