An organization requires any travel and entertainment expenses over $10,000 to be approved by senior management. Which of the following is the MOST effective way to mitigate the risk that employees will split invoices to avoid the approval process?
An organization requires any travel and entertainment expenses over $10,000 to be approved by senior management. Which of the following is the MOST effective way to mitigate the risk that employees will split invoices to avoid the approval process?
Developing computer-assisted audit techniques (CAATs) to check the full year's transactions is the most effective way to mitigate the risk of employees splitting invoices to avoid the approval process. CAATs can systematically analyze the entire set of transactions to identify patterns of invoice splitting, providing a comprehensive view over a long period. This method is more thorough as it checks all records rather than just relying on alerts from continuous auditing, which may not catch all instances of split invoices.
Option D has a narrow scope of auditing for invoices that have already been submitted, and cannot effectively prevent the discovery of split travel and entertainment expense claims in real time. Although it is important to always audit for new suspicious claims, there is a limit to how much it can do to prevent invoices that have already been split. Therefore, the most effective method is to use CAAT to audit annual transactions and ensure that travel and entertainment expenses are properly approved.