Question: In this Assignment, you will research significant deficiencies during the course of an audit you are engaged to perform.
You are conducting the audit of A-One Travel. There are two major concerns you have in A-One's operations:
1. When a customer purchases a travel package via credit card, the accounting department records a debit to accounts receivable and a credit to sales. However, if the customer cancels the package, no entry is made at the time of cancellation. The customer must request a refund in writing and only then is the credit card refunded and reversing entries made. As expected, customers call A- One upset that their credit card charges have not been reversed in a timely matter, as they were not clearly made aware that refund requests must be made in writing. (This policy is stated on the company website, but it is very difficult to find.)
2. As a result of this policy, some customers are never given refunds because they do not submit a written refund request. Because no reversing entries were made, these still appear as valid credit card sales on A-One's books. You speak to A-One's president, who states that it is not his problem if his wealthy clientele overlook the charge and are not concerned with getting their money back. He sticks to his company policy and does not offer "freebies."