In: Accounting
Biotech Limited
Financial year end 30 June 2020
You are an auditor in Smit & Chandra, a mid-tier audit firm. Your firm is the incumbent auditor on Biotech Ltd, a pharmaceutical company. Since the previous audit, the company has listed on the Australian Securities Exchange which means the company has to meet additional reporting regulations. Due to rapid growth, Biotech Ltd is financially stretched and its accounting systems are struggling to cope with the growth in the business. You recently read an article in the Australian Financial Review, which stated that Biotech Ltd is currently under investigation by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for alleged failure to pay the appropriate amount of Pay As You Go (PAYG) tax on their payroll.
Biotech Ltd is a pharmaceutical company, developing drugs to be licensed for use around the world. Products include medicines such as tablets, medical gels and creams. The market is very competitive, encouraging rapid product innovation. New products are continually in development and improvements are made to existing formulations. Drugs must meet very stringent regulatory requirements prior to being licensed for production and sale. You are aware that during the 2020 financial year, Biotech Ltd lost several customer contracts to overseas competitors.
Biotech Ltd approached its bank during the year to extend its borrowing facilities. An extension of $20 million was sought to its existing loan to support the on-going development of new drugs. The long-term borrowings are subject to debt covenants in which the company must maintain a current ratio of 3.5:1.
In addition, the company asked the bank to make cash of $5 million available if an existing court case against the company is successful. The court case is being brought by an individual who suffered severe side effects when participating in a clinical trial in 2016.
On 8 June 2020, the Company announced to the market it had been the victim of a cyber-security incident that resulted in supplier and customer details being disclosed on the dark web. The Company is assessing the costs of the incident and the subsequent reduction in revenue. The Company expects this to have a material impact on future earnings.
In December 2019, the internal audit department of Biotech Ltd performed a review of the operation of controls over processing of overtime payments in the Payroll department. It was found that the company’s specified internal control procedures in relation to the processing of overtime payments were not followed.
Below are some results of the analytical review procedures performed by the Senior Auditor (David) during the planning stage:
Sales 12.5% decrease since prior year
Net profit after tax 20% decrease since prior year
Accounts payable 15% decrease since prior year
Cash at Bank 16% increase since prior year
Accounts receivable 18% increase since prior year
Inventories 6% increase since prior year
Current ratio: 3.6:1
Debt to Equity ratio: 0.6
Minutes from the Audit Planning meeting with Simon Jones (Finance Director of Biotech Ltd) held on 30th April 2020:
Due to the current government restrictions, the planning meeting with Simon Jones was held via Zoom. In attendance at the meeting was the Audit Partner (Michael), the Audit Manager (Amanda) and the Audit Senior (David).
The following key items were discussed during the meeting:
The Audit Team
The audit team consists of 4 people. The partner is Michael. He has been the audit partner on the Biotech Ltd audit for 6 years. The audit manager is Amanda. This is Amanda’s first time on the Biotech Ltd audit. David is the audit senior and is responsible for the initial audit planning. David has recently completed the Graduate Diploma of Chartered Accounting. David has just been offered a well-paying accountant position at Biotech but he has not yet decided whether to accept the position. The graduate on the audit is Audrey. Audrey’s friend is the receptionist at Biotech Ltd. The receptionist has no accounting knowledge and has no involvement with the recording or processing of accounting transactions.
Accounts Receivable / Sales Accounting Cycle and Internal Control System
At the end of each month, the sales manager determines the amount of products required to meet sales demand for the following month based on sales orders received. He reviews the sales orders received from customers and then prepares the pre-numbered inventory requisition forms, which he then sends to the warehouse managers so that they can prepare the goods for delivery. One copy of the sales order and inventory requisition form is sent to the warehouse, one copy is sent to the accounts receivable department and one copy is filed in the sales department.
The warehouse prepares the goods for delivery to the customers and generates the delivery document. When the goods have been delivered, the signed delivery document, which includes the delivery details, is forwarded to the accounts receivable department. The other copy is filed in the warehouse. The accounts receivable clerk matches the signed delivery document with the sales order and inventory requisition form. Once satisfied that all of the details agree, the clerk generates the sales invoice. Once generated, the clerk does another check to ensure that all details per the sales invoice agrees to the delivery document and sales order. Once satisfied, she writes “checked” on the sales invoice and sends it to the customer. At the end of every week, a different clerk in the Accounts Receivable team reviews the bank statements for receipt of payments from customers and performs a reconciliation against the sales invoices. Once a customer has paid the sales invoice, the clerk stamps “received” on the sales invoice and files that along with all the other documents in date order.
The walk-through of the accounts receivable/sales cycle confirmed that the accounting and internal control system was working as documented above.
Test of control:
As part of the audit, Audrey tested the controls over the accounts receivable system. She selected a sample of twenty sales transactions and tested the control that all details had been checked. Out of the 20 sales transactions that were selected for testing, 5 sales invoices in the sample did not have the word “checked” written on them. When documenting the results of the test performed, Audrey concluded that the internal control did not operate effectively and consistently throughout the year but that no further audit work is required.
Substantive test
In order to test the occurrence of the sales transactions, Audrey selected a sample of sales invoices and traced them to the General Ledger to test that they were properly recorded.
Subsequent events not previously mentioned
Identify and Explain the inherent risk and business risk and their types for the above case study?
Business risk relates to the financial statements and affects overall audit risk; inherent risk applies to an individual audit area. Inherent risk is explicitly included in the professional standards and the audit‐risk model while business risk is not and has only an indirect bearing on the model.Business risk and inherent risk both bear on the audit; the audit risk model; and the nature, timing, and extent of work performed. Inherent risk and business risk bear an inverse relationship to detection risk and have a direct effect on the level of work performed. Neither risk can be eliminated totally and neither is controllable by the auditor. Management can take steps to affect the level of inherent risk, but the perceptions of users of the financial statements bear on business risk.
Inherent risk is defined as the possibility of incorrect or misleading information in accounting statements resulting from something other than the failure of controls.
Business risk is the exposure a company or organization has to factor(s) that will lower its profits or lead it to fail. Anything that threatens a company's ability to achieve its financial goals is considered a business risk.
In the above casestudy reveals the different types inherent risk with in the firm . The business is under supervision of the regulatory authority becasuse of improper recording of buisness transactions and ilegitimate business things. The managent of this concern is not efficient in their operations and they have making many mistakes in recording and keeping business transaction. They are not following the accounting standars for their financial transactions. The previous audit reports shows the misappropriation of figures and the accounts they maintained for accounts receivable, sales are not properly maintained. This shows the financial recordings are fraudlent in nature.
The audi team is not an expert in nature this is an limiting factor of the firm.The business is in a trouble that they face a suit against them because its a pharmaceutical copmany thy made many tests and its not authorised level and one of its tester suffered severe sideeffects. The reputation also declined.
Business risks
The Bio tech Ltd faces business risks also. they face competition from all over the orld because they produce pharmaceutics . The invention in the medicines create more human related issues they also face like a problem in their new product development stage. It will affect their reputation and goodwill and leads to the financial loss.