"The Voice within"

During my time as an audit assistant in one of the previous organizations, I was given the audit assignment of one of our clients. One senior team member was also with me. It was a plan for four days.

I started conducting the audit under the guidance of my supervisor. It was a Start-up Company. Everything was going as per plan. ?Every record was properly maintained and recorded by the company with all supporting evidence, and it was following all its policies.

On the fourth day of audit, I was very happy, as it was the last day of audit. I started that day by checking sales invoices. I came across the first invoice, which had an attachment of approximately 8 sheets, with the final total tallying with the main invoice.

After discussing with the accountant, I came to know that there are more than 200 Invoices with attachments ranging from a minimum of 7 sheets to a maximum of 15 sheets. I calculated the time required for each Invoice and firmly concluded that each Invoice would require a minimum of 15 Minutes to a maximum of 30 Minutes (as It would involve checking the total of each sheet). I immediately went to my supervisor, explained my concern, and requested some more time to complete the audit. He instructed me that you need not to check the total as all sheets are computerized and the total is linked to the main invoice; just apply your own judgment. As per his instruction, I started checking, but my mind was not accepting the reason given by my senior.

When I reached a certain Invoice, again, my inner voice popped as I didn’t have confidence in what I was doing. To gain more clarity for myself, I checked the total of all attached sheets of this Invoice by using a calculator. It was correct. Then I checked the next 3 invoices in the same manner; they were all tallying. I started getting confidence in their system and started blaming myself for not relying on the senior’s instructions, as all sheets are computerized. I again started working as per the instructions of my supervisor.

I came across an Invoice that carried my favorite number. I had thought of checking at least this invoice thoroughly to satisfy my inner voice. Now here was the actual surprise. When I applied my calculator, I found that the total from the 1st row of the 1st sheet to the last row of the last sheet (attached to the invoice) was not matching with the final total printed on the last sheet, but the final total printed on the last sheet was matching with?the main invoice.

I immediately informed my supervisor. He also checked twice and agreed with me. We went to management to find out the reason. Management was also surprised to see this mistake, as there was a larger difference between the actual total and the invoice amount. The invoice was raised at a lower amount due to a total mistake.

Me, my supervisor, and a senior member of management immediately went to the invoice-raising team. I saw that the client was using Excel to maintain those sheets. I requested team to show me soft copy of that invoice. I opened that invoice and viewed the sheets. I clicked on the final total cell, and now there was a surprise as the formula was wrong. The person who prepared the invoice skipped the last 21 rows while taking the sum in the total cell.

I was curious to know the reason behind this mistake. I personally met the person who prepared that invoice and explained his mistake to him. When I asked him the reason, he said that certain items were added later on by inserting the rows just above the total cell location (where total is taken), but he forgot to correct the sum formula.

I checked the next invoices, and the same mistake was there until the next 7th invoice. Then I checked previous invoices and found the same mistake in the preceding nine invoices, as the preceding 9th Invoice was the starting point of the mistake. The reason for this was that the user had copied the previous sheets for raising the next invoice. The user only changed the data, but the sum formula remained unaltered, and hence the same mistake continued.

I requested my supervisor for allowing me more time to complete the audit, which he also accepted. I started rechecking from 1st Invoice and found the same type of mistake in some of the invoices. The total difference in unraised revenue was a large amount.

I got appreciation from my boss and the client. It was a great learning lesson for management as there were no cross-checking controls in their system.

Thanks for reading.

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