For the past few weeks, Avis had been assigned to the audit engagement for Lowell,Inc., a public company that operated nearly 100 retail sporting goods stores scattered across the South. Avis was nearing completion of a year-end cash receipts cutoff test for a sample of 20 Lowell stores. the audit procedures she had performed included preparing a list of the cash receipts reported in each of those store accounting records during the last five days of Lowell's fiscal year, which ended October 31. she had then obtained the relevant bank statement for each of the stores to determine whether the cash receipts had been deposited on a timely basis. For three of the stores in her sample, the deposit date for the cash receipts ranged from three to seven days following the dates the receipts had been entered in the cash receipts journal. The individual store managers had apparently backdated cash receipts for the first several days of the new fiscal year, making it appear that the receipts had occurred in the fiscal year under audit by Avis's firm.