As per the Privacy Act 1988 the files and records handled during the course of providing services to the clients must be maintained properly. Access to these files and records should be restricted only to the concerned person. No information or records from such files should be disclosed to anyone except with the consent of the client. Business organizations as well as individuals must follow the provisions of Privacy Act 1988 to comply with the requirements of the act.
A company’s files must be properly kept in a place and system which is restricted to the access of unauthorized personnel. The data integrity and confidentiality about the information of the company is of utmost importance for an organization. The confidentiality and security of company files can be improved significantly with the use important provisions of the Privacy Act 1988. It important for the professionals including the qualified accountants and other professionals to adhere to the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 to protect the company files and documents properly (Alles, Brennan, Kogan & Vasarhelyi, 2018).
Integrity and honesty: Accountants must have integrity and honesty. Integrity an honestly will help the accountant to correct record the financial transactions in the books of accounts. These two ethical responsibilities of an accountant will help the profession to grow further and improve the quality of book keeping and financial reporting.
The confidentiality of the data has been breached and the colleague has violated the work ethics and standards at the work place. Complying with the professional and work place standards is essential for workers and employees. The Privacy Act 1988 protects the privacy and confidentiality of personal and sensitive information of workers and employees at the work and other places. In case colleagues at work place violate the ethical provision of confidentiality and privacy requirements of personal information the workers violating such provision will be liable to penalties for their unethical behavior (Chan & Vasarhelyi, 2018).
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the corporate regulator in the country with the responsibility of enforcing and regulating laws in relation to corporate and financial services. ASIC is responsible to regulate the securities market to protect the interests of the investors and shareholders. The ASIC Act 2001 has also been formulated to protect the interests of investors and shareholders in the capital market.
The purpose of ASIC act 2001 is to provide the laws and regulations for company and financial services in the country. Corporations Act 2001 is responsible to provide necessary rules and regulations applicable to companies in the country and Protection of Consumers and Investors Act is ot protect the investors and consumers from fraud.
Using common reporting standards as used by residents to prepare and present financial reports by the foreign residents. The foreign tax residents have become liable to file the mandatory tax returns as per the Common Reporting Standard. As a result the uniformity in financial reporting between residents and foreign residents has increased (Argyris, 2017).
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is to unify the financial reporting standards to improve comparability of financial reports of different companies operating in different parts of the globe. One set of financial reporting standards to prepare and present financial reports is the main objective of GRI.
A single set of reporting standards referred as GRI will effectively reduce number of negative aspects of financial reporting. The comparability of financial and accounting reports shall be improved with use of single sets of accounting and financial reporting standards. The quality of financial reporting will improved significantly with the use of GRI.
An effective internal control system is essential to the successful operations and management of an organization. Effective internal control system helps in managing the resources of an organization effectively as well as other assets of the organization are correctly used in the business operations. The risk of loss due to fraud and errors by the management also reduces with an effective internal control system in place. Effective internal control systems ensure that each and every single transaction is correctly documented and reported. The books of accounts are maintained effectively due to effective internal control system within an organization as all the financial transactions are correctly recorded as per the accounting standards in the books of accounts (Alles, Brennan, Kogan & Vasarhelyi, 2018).
Corporate governance is about fair and standard practice of business operations whereas internal auditing is appraisal of internal control system and management of the organization by internal or external employees. Corporate governance improves significantly if an organization has an effective internal control system as all the provisions of different acts are followed properly by an organization with an effective internal control system in place.
Internal controls cannot reduce the risk of mistake, error and fraud in an organization completely to zero. The effectiveness of internal controls is dependent on the efficient working of these controls throughout the entire period of reliance. The inherent risk of errors, mistakes cannot be reduced even with formulation and implementation of effective controls. The element of human error cannot be eliminated and since the internal control system within an organization is to be implemented by human agency thus, internal control system will never be free of inherent risk (Chang, 2016).
At-least after four years the CEO may take on the role of a chair.
The crater must contain all provisions to be fulfiller by different stakeholders of an organization. The relevant provisions and guidelines provided in the charter must be followed by the employees of the organization.
The steps in evolution of internal controls are as following:
Internal audit is about verification of internal control and securities within an organization. External audit on the other hand is about independent verification of financial statements of an organization by qualified auditors (Sayles, 2017).
BHP Billiton Limited is an Anglo-Australian mining company founded back in 1885 in the country. The company is dual listed company with its shares listed in Australian Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange.
Company is a multi-national company with its operations spreading to number of countries including Australia, USA, UK, Russia and others. The company complies with corporate governance principles of ASX of maintaining proper books of accounts, conduct business operations as per the provisions of Corporations Act 2001, fulfil the requirements of the society to make optimum use of resources to achieve organizational objectives and correctly paying its taxes as per the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
The internal control and governance system of the company:
As already mentioned that the ability of an organization to efficiently use its resources in business operations is dependant to a large extent on the effectiveness of its internal control system and governance structure of the company.
The management of BHP Billiton Limited has instituted an effective internal control system within the organization to safeguard the assets of the company and make effective use of resources of the company in business operations. The company has constituted number of different committees such as Audit committee, Remuneration committee and other such committees to fulfil the requirements of Corporations Act 2001.
Audit committee:
The board of directors of the company has constituted an audit committee to conduct regular verification of internal control systems, its effectiveness, internal controls, accounting system and other systems operating within the company. The audit committee also cooperate with internal and external auditors to improve the effectiveness of internal and external auditing.
The audit committee evaluates the effectiveness of different systems within the company to identify the weaknesses in internal control system, internal securities and accounting system. The recommendations if properly followed by the management of an organization improves the effectiveness of business operations and ability of an organization to use its resources efficiently. The management of BHP Billiton Limited has considered the recommendations of Audit committee to improve the business operations of the company over the years (Scott, 2015).
The company must comply with the requirements of Corporations Act 2001, Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act 2001 to comply with the legislative requirements in the country. Internal control system within the company helps the company to achieve the above objectives.
Introduction:
Internal control system of an organization plays an important role in ensuring that the functions and operations within the organization are in accordance with the objectives of the organization. Hence, it is important to have effective internal controls within an organization. A detailed discussion on effective internal controls and its importance is made in this report.
Effective internal controls and its benefits:
An organization should have an effective internal control system and must follow the standard procedures to manage the business operations in a way suitable to the achievement of business objectives of the organization. As per the facts of the case it is clear that the organization, The Train Station lacks an effective internal control system. The appointment of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) by the organization is definitely a positive step by the management. However, the CFO must take appropriate course of action to achieve the organization objectives of improve the current state of affairs and controls within the organization. The control procedure for the organization should take into consideration the current deficiencies and make changes in the system accordingly to improve the control procedures within the organization (Sadgrove, 2016).
Subject: The steps to be taken by the CEO
Respected sir,
The CFO should take the following steps immediately after his appointment to improve the controls procedures and governance within The Train Station.
The above steps will help the new CFO of The Train Station to improve the internal control procedures and governance system of the organization. It is important to take the above steps by the CFO as soon as possible as the organization is in dismal state as far as the internal control and governance procedures are concerned (Chen, Wang, Nevo, Jin, Wang & Chow, 2014).
Regards,
(Name of the student)
Internal control procedures to deal with issue of unauthorized invoices:
The two internal control procedures that will help in dealing with the issue of unauthorized invoices and vouchers will be as following:
Conclusion:
Proper segregation of duties, instituting proper internal control procedures in payroll departments and instituting other internal controls shall be helpful to the new CFO to improve the internal control and standards procedures within the organization.
A complete evolution of internal controls would be helpful in identifying any possible area of weaknesses in the internal controls. A detailed discussion on the findings from evolution of internal controls of the organization is discussed in this report.
Internal control evolution report:
As per the review of the internal control of Garden Worx Pty Ltd the following findings certainly show that the internal control are not effectively working within the company. Out of the 40 purchase orders reviewed there were 10 purchase orders which were not signed. Also there were two purchase orders above $500, i.e. $640 and $920 to be precise, were not signed by the CEO. Similarly 40 invoices reviewed showed there were number of orders that did not had the purchase order numbers.
Thus, from the above review it is clear that the internal control system is not effectively working within the company as the purchase orders and invoices are issued without following the standard internal control procedures.
Revised evolution report:
The internal control procedures must work effectively throughout the intended period of reliance within an organization to ensure that the operations within the organization are conducted effectively to make optimum use of organizational resources. By improving the quality of internal controls within the organization the management can improve the business operations and effectiveness within the organization.
The following improvements shall be made in the existing internal control procedures to ensure that the purchase orders and invoices are issued as per the standard internal control procedures within the organization. There were 80 purchase orders that were issued during March 2017 to June 2017. Out of 80 purchase orders 40 purchase orders were reviewed to evaluate the internal control procedures within the company. 25% of the population, i.e. 10 out of 40 purchase orders were not signed. The management must ensure each and every single purchase order is signed to follow the due and standard procedure. The purchase orders in excess of $500 must have the signature of CEO however, there two such purchase orders out of 40 orders reviewed that did not had the approval of the CEO.
Conclusion:
The management must follow the standard procedure strictly to ensure that the procedures are correctly followed. Similarly there were 40 invoices between the period which were reviewed out of which there were number of orders which did not have the purchase order numbers as per the requirement of internal control systems.
References:
Alles, M., Brennan, G., Kogan, A., & Vasarhelyi, M. A. (2018). Continuous monitoring of business process controls: A pilot implementation of a continuous auditing system at Siemens. In Continuous Auditing: Theory and Application (pp. 219-246). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Alles, M., Brennan, G., Kogan, A., & Vasarhelyi, M. A. (2018). Continuous monitoring of business process controls: A pilot implementation of a continuous auditing system at Siemens. In Continuous Auditing: Theory and Application (pp. 219-246). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Argyris, C. (2017). Integrating the Individual and the Organization. Routledge.
Center, P., Alliance, A. M. A., & Insurance, A. M. A. (2016). Practice Management. Safety.
Chan, D. Y., & Vasarhelyi, M. A. (2018). Innovation and practice of continuous auditing. In Continuous Auditing: Theory and Application (pp. 271-283). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Chang, J. F. (2016). Business process management systems: strategy and implementation. Auerbach Publications.
Chen, Y., Wang, Y., Nevo, S., Jin, J., Wang, L., & Chow, W. S. (2014). IT capability and organizational performance: the roles of business process agility and environmental factors. European Journal of Information Systems, 23(3), 326-342.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Sadgrove, K. (2016). The complete guide to business risk management. Routledge.
Sayles, L. R. (2017). Managing large systems: Organizations for the future. Routledge.
Scott, W. R. (2015). Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. Routledge.
Scott, W. R. (2015). Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. Routledge.
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