ACCOUNTING POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

Transcription

1 Unit: Subject: Sarbanes-Oxley Act Review - Financial Reporting Title: Risk & Control Identification Year end: ACCOUNTING POLICIES AND PROCEDURES Management should define and communicate accounting principles. Accounting policies and procedures should be established in accordance with management criteria, GAAP, and applicable laws and regulations. These policies and procedures should be in writing and provide adequate explanations for the company's accounting policies and procedures. FIN101 Financial statements / Management pack may be misstated, inconsistent, and / or not prepared in accordance with Management policies, GAAP and applicable laws and regulations. Written accounting policies and procedures exist and include such matters as: Chart of accounts accompanied by explanations of the items to be included in the various accounts. Identification and description of the principal accounting records, recurring standard entries, and requirements for supporting documentation. For example, this may include information about the General Ledger, source journals, subsidiary ledgers, and detail records for each significant class of transactions. Expression of the assignment of responsibilities and delegation of authority, including identification of the individual positions that have authority to approve various types of recurring and non-recurring entries. Explanations of documentation and approval requirements for various types of recurring and non-recurring transactions and journal entries. Documentation requirements, for example, would include the basis and supporting computations required for adjustments and write-offs. Instructions for determining an adequate cut-off and closing of accounts for each reporting period. Appropriate revision of policies and procedures. FIN102 Accounting policies and procedures are no longer pertinent. Accounting policy and procedure manuals are updated as necessary. New policies and procedures or changes to existing policies and procedures or changes to existing policies and procedures should be documented, reviewed and approved by management.

2 Only authorised persons can alter or establish a new accounting principle, policy, or procedure to be used by the company. FIN103 Unauthorised accounting principles may be applied. The Board of Directors approves accounting principles to be applied. CODING AND CLASSIFICATION OF TRANSACTIONS All reportable transactions and activities should be coded and classified on an accurate and consistent basis, and in accordance with company policy, GAAP, and applicable laws and regulations. FIN201 Inaccurate coding and classification of regulated and nonregulated activities may occur. Misallocations between General codes and accounts should be maintained and distributed (e.g. Reference manuals and guides which describe and define Ledger accounts, Cost Elements, or Cost Centres. Financial an Accounts Manual). statements may be misstated, inconsistent, and / or not Employees should be trained on the use of proper codes. prepared in accordance with company policy, GAAP, and New codes should be systematically assigned and existing applicable laws and regulations. codes should be updated as appropriate. Documents used to report transactions and activities (e.g. time sheets, vouchers) should be reviewed and approved by management. Transactions or changes impacting the financial reporting process should be reported to Corporate Accounting e.g. all new clearing accounts, extraordinary items, prior period adjustments, and contingent liabilities. GENERAL LEDGER MASTER RECORDS (CHART OF ACCOUNTS) General Ledger Master Data / General Ledger Maintenance

3 Only valid changes are made to the General Ledger master records. (validity) The General Ledger Chart of Accounts reflects Group requirements. New accounts will be added to the Chart of Accounts only if they are necessary and have been approved to help ensure efficient system processing and accurate transaction processing. FIN301 Invalid changes are made to the General Ledger master records. A procedure is established that changes to the General Ledger master record are documented on a valid source document and approved by Senior Management. All information entered during General Ledger master record creation and / or change is automatically validated by SAP. Upon entry in the field, the system automatically checks the value entered against the values available in the configuration tables. An error message is generated if the value entered is not available. Standard SAP functionality prevents General Ledger accounts from being deleted until accounts are void of all activity. General Ledger accounts cannot be marked for deletion until they have been blocked from posting for a specified length of time, (e.g. end of fiscal year). Procedures are established for the official responsible for the creation of new General Ledger accounts to perform a matchcode search when creating a new General Ledger account to ensure that General Ledger accounts do not proliferate. Searches can be performed on the following codes: Chart of Accounts; General Ledger Account #, General Ledger text & company. All valid changes to General Ledger master records are processed. (completeness) Changes to the General Ledger master records / Chart of Accounts will be communicated to the user community in a timely manner to prevent processing errors. General Ledger master record information is recorded in a consistent and complete fashion. FIN302 Not all valid changes to the General Ledger master records are input and processed. Requests to change General Ledger master records are submitted on standard prenumbered forms (e.g. a "General Ledger master record form"). To ensure that all request changes are processed, the numerical sequence of such forms is accounted for after processing (e.g. by reconciliation to a SAP report of General Ledger master record changes e.g. RFSABL00 - change documents). FIN303 System interruptions. Misallocations. A list of users affected by the changes made to General Ledger master records should be maintained. Before performing a change, the official making the change should notify and verify the change with all these users to ensure that the change will be properly implemented without causing system interruption. FIN304 Incomplete data may be entered in the General Ledger master The field status group defines the fields that are mandatory and records. Critical fields that must be entered are not specified as optional when using the General Ledger account. mandatory.

4 Changes to General Ledger master records are correctly processed. (accuracy) Notifications of changes to General Ledger master records are processed timeously. (proper period) All new accounts will be added in a timely manner so they are available for transaction processing in the correct period. FIN305 Changes to General Ledger master records may be incorrectly processed. FIN306 Changes to the General Ledger master records are not processed timeously. Payroll may be incorrectly computed for the relevant period. The official (responsible for maintenance of General Ledger master records) shall process all requests for modification of the General Ledger master records after having checked the contents and the accuracy of the data supplied. Each change to General Ledger master records is prepared from appropriate source documents (e.g. a "General Ledger master record amendment form"). SAP edits and validates General Ledger master records online, identified errors are corrected promptly. A procedure should be established that the change to General Ledger master records is made within an established time period after the source document (e.g.: General Ledger master record amendment form) has been received. By processing the change immediately after the source document has been received, the General Ledger master record is kept current and the possibility of incorrect changes being made is minimised. Requests to change General Ledger master record data are logged. The log is reviewed to ensure that all request changes are processed timeously. Changes to General Ledger master records are authorised by a responsible official. (authorisation) Maintenance to the Chart of Accounts will be properly approved to ensure that the changes will be properly implemented. General Ledger master records remain pertinent. Maintenance of the Chart of Accounts will be conducted for operating efficiency. General Ledger master records are periodically checked by a responsible official (for inter alia completeness and accuracy). An audit trail will exist for all changes to the Chart of Accounts. All changes to, and deletion of General Ledger master records must be properly logged, documented and retained. FIN307 Changes to General Ledger master records may not be authorised. FIN308 General Ledger master records do not remain pertinent. General Ledger master records) may not be properly maintained. General Ledger master records no longer needed are not deleted / archived from the system. FIN309 Unauthorised changes to General Ledger master records (including creation or deletion of accounts) may go undetected. Errors in capturing General Ledger master records are not timeously identified. No responsibility is assigned for regularly reviewing audit trails of change information. (No master data amendment report is generated to ensure that the information processed is correct and accurate.) Changes to General Ledger master records are not supported by valid documentation. Required documentation is not retained for mandatory retention periods. Significant changes to General Ledger master records are approved by management. General Ledger master record data is periodically reviewed by management for accuracy and ongoing pertinence. Management review the Chart of Accounts annually to identify unused, duplicates, or possible additions to the values. The Financial Accountant reviews the General Ledger account change report on a monthly basis to ensure changes are performed in compliance with General Ledger maintenance requests. Changes to critical General Ledger master details are reviewed by senior management. A master data amendment report showing data before and after changes is approved (based on a comparison to source documents where appropriate) by an independent person. A SAP report (e.g. RFSABL00) is generated with date and time of change, old and new values for fields and also the user who entered the change. Procedures exist to retain all documentation on any Chart of Accounts maintenance requests.

5 GENERAL LEDGER ENTRIES General Ledger Posting: Recording of entries in the General Ledger from cashbook, sales, accounts payable and other subsidiary systems. General Ledger entries are prepared with genuine information. (validity) The authenticity of the transaction source is validated. FIN401 Transaction may not be genuine. Rejected items require re-entry on a timely basis subject to the same input controls as new transactions. (completeness) FIN402 Rejected items not re-entered. All rejected items should be reviewed for errors and re-entered in the same manner under management supervision. Application systems provide audit trails of significant transaction activity. FIN403 Historical General Ledger detail, including supporting documentation is not available when needed. No audit trail, resulting in fraud and errors not being identified or corrected. Standard SAP functionality tracks all transactions and access to the system is restricted. Review and approval of audit trail reports on a timely basis. All General Ledger entries are recorded. (completeness) Application controls ensure all transactions input are processed. General Ledger entries are correct in respect of amounts (accuracy). Foreign exchange gains and losses are calculated correctly and posted to the correct account. General Ledger entries are posted to the correct account. (classification) FIN404 Not all valid transactions are processed. Recurring entries: Some financial documents have to be posted every month to the General Ledger. SAP has the recurring entries option available where documents are entered only once in the system and SAP is told when to process the document again automatically. Reconciliation of General Ledger accounts. FIN405 Transactions processed are inaccurate. Field status groups define the fields that are mandatory and optional when using the General Ledger account during processing. The field status groups were configured during implementation and help to ensure the accurate entry of financial postings. Financial documents are automatically checked during entry to ensure that debit and credit balance. Creation of the document is only possible after the error has been corrected. FIN406 VAT, sales tax (Usutu?) and foreign exchange gains and losses are calculated incorrectly or posted to the incorrect account. FIN407 Items are matched to the incorrect open item managed account or to the incorrect line item in an open item managed account. Financials are inaccurate and are not comparable due to misclassifications. SAP can be configured per company and per foreign currency how much the exchange rate on the document header may differ from the exchange rate currently known in the system. SAP is configured to establish account assignment models to reduce data entry errors. Financial document types define the type of account that a document can be posted to. Reconciliation of General Ledger accounts.