Details

Case

Amal (Hope) Foundation

Mian Bilal Zia, Arslan Shahid Butt

INDUSTRY : Education, Healthcare

AREA : Accounting & Control

ORGANIZATION : Non-Governmental Organization

LENGTH : 10

LUMS No : 01-513-2015-1

PUBLICATION YEAR : 2015

KEYWORDS:

Amal Foundation,Accounting Control System, Business Processes,Fraud and Error,Financial Management

DESCRIPTION:

The objective of the case Is to analyze the internal controls of a civil society organization to help participants understand the importance of internal controls. The COSO framework will be used to highlight the areas of internal controls that requires attention from the organization to achieve its overall goals and objectives. Discussion will be structured in such a way that the participants are taken through different organizational aspects of internal controls, starting from the study of the control environment of the organization and moving onto the risk assessment process and final, talking abrout the information system, control activities and the monitoring of these activities. Specifically, the case highlights the issues with the accountants, the educational background of the board of trustees, organizational structures and reporting lines and a lack of segregation of duties. Apart from a general discussion about Internal controls, the case describes three different scenarios where participants will have to decide whether the situation describes fraud or an accounting error. The participants wilt be asked to recommend appropriate action thereon. The protagonist Anwar is a financial consultant, hired by Amal Foundation to assist Amal in meeting its internal financial control requirements for getting their PCP certification. Apart from recommending general improvements in the internal controls given the budget constraints, he has to incidentally ascertain the possibility of fraud by the accountant.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1) To equip participants with the understanding of business processes and the importance of designing and implementing controls properly for each of the business processes under discussion. 2) To enable participants to detect accounting control weaknesses and where possible suggest improvements to the system. 3) To allow participants to understand the difference between fraud and error. 4) Expose participants to internal accounting controls and discuss why they are important for the financial management of an organization.

SUBJECTS COVERED:

Accounting, Control, Principles Of Financial Accounting, Principles Of Management Accounting