Internal Control Practices Research Articles

Internal Control Systems at Ghana Education Service: Evidence from New Juaben Municipal Directorate

The study seeks to evaluate the internal control practices of the New Juaben Municipal directorate of the Ghana Education Service. A descriptive research approach is adopted for the purpose of achieving the overall objective of the study. Primary data was gathered using a structured questionnaire. The data was gathered from one hundred respondents who play different roles in the Directorate. The results of the study suggest that there exist systems of control over the mobilization and management of IGFs at the New Juaben Municipal directorate of the Ghana Education Service. It was also found that although controls exist, these controls are not adequate to meet the operational needs or demands of the organisation. The study also found that non-compliance to established systems of control are reinforced by the absence of adequate punitive measures for non-compliance. the study found that to a large extent management monitors the activities of workers in an attempt to ensure that rules and procedure are adhered to. However, since cases of non-compliance still prevail, it can be concluded that the monitoring is not as effective as it should be. The study recommends that measures should be put in place by the management of the New Juaben Municipal directorate of the Ghana Education Service to promote awareness and sensitization of staff on both long and short term objectives and need to adhere to established systems of controls. Institution of regular workshops, seminars and educative programmes for not only senior staff but also junior staff aimed at increasing their level of awareness of internal controls would impact positively on the achievement of organizational goals.

“Privatizing” the GST Audit: Singapore’s Compliance Programmes

In recent years, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore introduced two goods and services tax compliance programmes. In this article, the author describes these programmes and observes how they effectively “privatize” the GST audits, particularly of larger businesses, by capitalizing on the potential and motivation of these businesses to incorporate tax risk management as part of overall corporate governance and by leveraging on the internal control processes and practices established by these businesses to secure voluntary compliance with the GST legislation.

National Survey on Internal Quality Control Practice for Lipid Parameters in Laboratories of China from 2014 to 2016.

To investigate the situation of Internal Quality Control (IQC) practice for total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol from 2014 to 2016 in laboratories in China and provide improvement measurements. A web-based External Quality Assessment (EQA) system was used to collect IQC data of lipid parameters in laboratories which continuously participated in the national EQA programs in China from 2014 to 2016. Pass rate of the coefficients of variation (CVs) of two level quality controls in four lipid parameters were calculated according to six quality specifications for precision to evaluate the current status of precision level of the four lipid parameters and their change over time in China. 533, 512, 504, and 466 laboratories continuously reported the data of level one for total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol, and 212, 210, 208 and 198 laboratories reported the level two, respectively. The percentage of laboratories meeting the quality specification varied based on different criteria. Non-significant change can be found in the pass rate of CVs over time. The number of laboratories using a closed system increased over time, but still only accounted for a small proportion. There is no significant difference in the pass rate of CVs between closed and open systems. Triglycerides currently have a fairly good performance in China. While the performance of laboratories on total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol has yet to be improved.

Using next generation electronic medical records for laboratory quality monitoring

The increasing commoditization of laboratory practice risked favouring speed and cost at the expense of quality. Recent retroactive reagent recalls and literature reports of failure to detect significant analytical deviation suggest that the practice of traditional quality control measures is increasingly insufficient to maintain the quality required for resource restricted, high throughput and complex laboratory testing environment. Newer, patient result-based quality techniques have shown good capability in detecting analytical errors. However, a limitation of such techniques is the difficulty in determining whether a breach in control limit is due to an analytical error or a shift in underlying population being monitored. The next generation electronic medical record is an information technology system that brings together different silos of healthcare databases. It has the potential to significantly alter the way laboratory practices quality control by matching patient result-based laboratory observations with clinical practice and findings. This way, any significantly abnormal laboratory findings can be quickly verified with clinical information. It is possible that the traditional internal quality control practice will be replaced by these techniques, although more research is required before this becomes commonplace.

State control and audit: Institutional provision and development prospects in order to ensure economic security of the region

The level of development of state control points to systemic problems of state administration and affects the state of economic security in the region. The author conducted a study of the Russian practice of internal control and internal audit in the public sector. The functions of internal financial control duplicate the functions of line management for operational management. Internal financial audit means the audit of the financial and economic activities of the institution. Comparison with the provisions of conceptual documents and standards has made it possible to identify that internal financial control and internal financial audit does not fully correspond to the representations of these documents. The author substantiated the need to transform internal financial control in internal control, internal financial audit into internal audit. The author proposed to supplement with the specialization “Economic and legal support of economic security in the public sector” specialty 38.05.01 “Economic security”.

Internal control weaknesses in a cooperative body: Malaysian experience

The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of the internal control practices in the cooperative body, an organisation area that has always been neglected in governance empirical research. This study also provides recommendations to overcome those weaknesses. A case study approach was selected for this study by selecting one cooperative body as a case. This study employed document analysis as the method of data collection and the data were analysed by using the latest COSO Internal Control - Integrated Framework. This study found that the selected cooperative body had very poor internal control. There was low data integrity where too many errors were detected in both the financial and non-financial data, while its daily transactions were recorded by using manual tools but without proper security leading to possible fraud. Furthermore, the effort to automate the system by acquiring a new software program has miserably failed due to incompetency of the workforce. To worsen matters, the employees also did not appreciate the importance of internal control.

National continuous surveys on internal quality control for HbA1c in 306 clinical laboratories of China from 2012 to 2016: Continual improvement.

This study aimed to evaluate whether the quality performance of clinical laboratories in China has been greatly improved and whether Internal Quality Control (IQC) practice of HbA1c has also been changed since National Center for Clinical Laboratories (NCCL) of China organized laboratories to report IQC data for HbA1c in 2012. Internal Quality Control information of 306 External Quality Assessment (EQA) participant laboratories which kept reporting IQC data in February from 2012 to 2016 were collected by Web-based EQA system. Then percentages of laboratories meeting four different imprecision specifications for current coefficient of variations (CVs) of HbA1c measurements were calculated. Finally, we comprehensively analyzed analytical systems and IQC practice of HbA1c measurements. The current CVs of HbA1c tests have decreased significantly from 2012 to 2016. And percentages of laboratories meeting four imprecision specifications for CVs all showed the increasing tendency year by year. As for analytical system, 52.1% (159/306) laboratories changed their systems with the change in principle of assay. And many laboratories began to use cation exchange high-performance liquid chromatography (CE-HPLC) instead of Immunoturbidimetry, because CE-HPLC owed a lower intra-laboratory CVs. The data of IQC practice, such as IQC rules and frequency, also showed significant variability among years with overall tendency of meeting requirements. The imprecision performance of HbA1c tests has been improved in these 5years with the change in IQC practice, but it is still disappointing in China. Therefore, laboratories should actively find existing problems and take action to promote performance of HbA1c measurements.

Interventions to reduce corruption in the health sector.

Corruption is the abuse or complicity in abuse, of public or private position, power or authority to benefit oneself, a group, an organisation or others close to oneself; where the benefits may be financial, material or non-material. It is wide-spread in the health sector and represents a major problem. Our primary objective was to systematically summarise empirical evidence of the effects of strategies to reduce corruption in the health sector. Our secondary objective was to describe the range of strategies that have been tried and to guide future evaluations of promising strategies for which there is insufficient evidence. We searched 14 electronic databases up to January 2014, including: CENTRAL; MEDLINE; EMBASE; sociological, economic, political and other health databases; Human Resources Abstracts up to November 2010; Euroethics up to August 2015; and PubMed alerts from January 2014 to June 2016. We searched another 23 websites and online databases for grey literature up to August 2015, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Transparency International, healthcare anti-fraud association websites and trial registries. We conducted citation searches in Science Citation Index and Google Scholar, and searched PubMed for related articles up to August 2015. We contacted corruption researchers in December 2015, and screened reference lists of articles up to May 2016. For the primary analysis, we included randomised trials, non-randomised trials, interrupted time series studies and controlled before-after studies that evaluated the effects of an intervention to reduce corruption in the health sector. For the secondary analysis, we included case studies that clearly described an intervention to reduce corruption in the health sector, addressed either our primary or secondary objective, and stated the methods that the study authors used to collect and analyse data. One review author extracted data from the included studies and a second review author checked the extracted data against the reports of the included studies. We undertook a structured synthesis of the findings. We constructed a results table and 'Summaries of findings' tables. We used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to assess the certainty of the evidence. No studies met the inclusion criteria of the primary analysis. We included nine studies that met the inclusion criteria for the secondary analysis.One study found that a package of interventions coordinated by the US Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice recovered a large amount of money and resulted in hundreds of new cases and convictions each year (high certainty of the evidence). Another study from the USA found that establishment of an independent agency to investigate and enforce efforts against overbilling might lead to a small reduction in overbilling, but the certainty of this evidence was very low. A third study from India suggested that the impacts of coordinated efforts to reduce corruption through increased detection and enforcement are dependent on continued political support and that they can be limited by a dysfunctional judicial system (very low certainty of the evidence).One study in South Korea and two in the USA evaluated increased efforts to investigate and punish corruption in clinics and hospitals without establishing an independent agency to coordinate these efforts. It is unclear whether these were effective because the evidence is of very low certainty.One study from Kyrgyzstan suggested that increased transparency and accountability for co-payments together with reduction of incentives for demanding informal payments may reduce informal payments (low certainty of the evidence).One study from Germany suggested that guidelines that prohibit hospital doctors from accepting any form of benefits from the pharmaceutical industry may improve doctors' attitudes about the influence of pharmaceutical companies on their choice of medicines (low certainty of the evidence).A study in the USA, evaluated the effects of introducing a law that required pharmaceutical companies to report the gifts they gave to healthcare workers. Another study in the USA evaluated the effects of a variety of internal control mechanisms used by community health centres to stop corruption. The effects of these strategies is unclear because the evidence was of very low certainty. There is a paucity of evidence regarding how best to reduce corruption. Promising interventions include improvements in the detection and punishment of corruption, especially efforts that are coordinated by an independent agency. Other promising interventions include guidelines that prohibit doctors from accepting benefits from the pharmaceutical industry, internal control practices in community health centres, and increased transparency and accountability for co-payments combined with reduced incentives for informal payments. The extent to which increased transparency alone reduces corruption is uncertain. There is a need to monitor and evaluate the impacts of all interventions to reduce corruption, including their potential adverse effects.

A Comparative Study of Internal Control System Practices in Some Selected Government Business Enterprises in Rwanda

More than ever, the concept of Internal Control System has become a crucial concern for todays entities, requiring their respective board of directors and/or executive managers to hold-on the candle-light of high integrity, zero tolerance to frauds and embezzlement of public funds, compliance with different sort of internal and external environments rules and regulations, as a prerequisite to competitive edges. With this regard, the present study examines whether there is or not a significant difference between respondents perceptions on internal control practices in some selected government business enterprises in Rwanda. Primary and secondary data have been used for this study, where the first ones have been collected through observation, non-structured interview and questionnaires with 0.814 Cronbachs Alpha reliably test. Descriptive statistics in terms of frequencies and percentages were used to assess the level of respondents perceptions, and T-test was used to find out if there was any significant difference between variables. The study found that there is no significant difference existing with respect to control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, but when it came to monitoring activities, a significant difference has been evident. All in all, the overall administered t-test concluded that there is a significant difference between respondents perceptions on internal control practices with regard to Rwanda government business enterprises. Basing on findings, some areas needing improvement like staff professional trainings, system of information gathering on frauds and embezzlements trends have been recommended to companies under study.

Content Analysis Of Board Reports On Corporate Governance, Internal Controls And Risk Management: Evidence From France

The French legislature has mandated in 2008 that the board chairperson reports on governance, internal controls, and risk management approach with the objective to enhance corporate disclosures to investors. This study examines the content of board chair reports to assess their relevance and compliance with mandated disclosure requirements. Based on a sample of 109 french publicly listed comapnies in 2009, Our results show that, with the exception of banks subject to a more stringent regulatory standard, the mandatory nature of the legislation did not translate in extended disclosures about internal controls and risk management practices. We further observe significant variations among the different indices of disclosure particularly with regards internal accounting and financial control. The multivaraite results validate the influence of the chosen internal control framework as well as firm characteristics on the content of the information disclosed about governance, internal control, and risk management practices.

INTERNAL CONTROLS PRACTICES AMONG NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IN MALAYSIA: EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION ON SEGREGATION OF ACCOUNTING DUTIES

Ponte Academic JournalNov 2016, Volume 72, Issue 11 INTERNAL CONTROLS PRACTICES AMONG NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IN MALAYSIA: EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION ON SEGREGATION OF ACCOUNTING DUTIESAuthor(s): Intan Salwani MohamedJ. Ponte - Nov 2016 - Volume 72 - Issue 11 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2016.11.32 Abstract:This study extends the important debate on internal control practices (ICP) to third sector of the economy, non-profit organizations (NPOs). The central argument of this study is to investigate factors that influence current practices related to segregation of accounting duties that covers authorization, recording, and custodial functions among NPOs in Malaysia. Four factors were tested based on two categories, organizational characteristics (size and organization age), and governance characteristics (board size and level of auditors� involvement). The study employs questionnaire survey as a method of data collection. In testing the hypotheses, inferential statistic multiple regression analysis was used. Findings suggested that board size and organization age have significant relationships with segregation of accounting duties implemented by the organization. Board size shows the greatest influence in establishing good internal control practices in terms of segregation of accounting duties for NPOs, followed by organization age. It can be concluded that proper guidelines on internal controls should be developed by regulating bodies such as Registrar of Society (ROS). As the majority of NPOs is managed by people with novice accounting knowledge, proper guidelines would help NPOs to strengthen their ICP in managing public funds. Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Accountability and internal control in religious organisations: a study of Methodist church Ghana

This paper studied the financial accountability and internal control practices of societies within the Kumasi Diocese of the Methodist church. A questionnaire survey was used to collect the data from 86 societies out of the 115 (75%) of the Kumasi Diocese. Secondary data was collected from books, journals, annual reports of churches and related researches from the internet. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. The results indicate that the church can improve its internal control system with regard to receipt of income and disbursement of funds. Establishing segregation of duties, recording of financial transactions and authorising the disbursement of funds can greatly improve internal controls. Though this is an exploratory study, it may provide the basis for further studies in examining the internal control practices in other religious organisations in Ghana.

Internal Quality Control Practices in Coagulation Laboratories: recommendations based on a patterns-of-practice survey.

Internal quality control (IQC) procedures are crucial for ensuring accurate patient test results. The IQMH Centre for Proficiency Testing conducted a web-based survey to gather information on the current IQC practices in coagulation testing. A questionnaire was distributed to 174 Ontario laboratories licensed to perform prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT). All laboratories reported using two levels of commercial QC (CQC); 12% incorporate pooled patient plasma into their IQC program; >68% run CQC at the beginning of each shift; 56% following maintenance, with reagent changes, during a shift, or with every repeat sample; 6% only run CQC at the beginning of the day and 25% when the instruments have been idle for a defined period of time. IQC run frequency was determined by manufacturer recommendations (71%) but also influenced by the stability of test (27%), clinical impact of an incorrect test result (25%), and sample's batch number (10%). IQC was monitored using preset limits based on standard deviation (66%), precision goals (46%), or allowable performance limits (36%). 95% use multirules. Failure actions include repeating the IQC (90%) and reporting patient results; if repeat passes, 42% perform repeat analysis of all patient samples from last acceptable IQC. Variability exists in coagulation IQC practices among Ontario clinical laboratories. The recommendations presented here would be useful in encouraging standardized IQC practices.

Internal Control Practices of Readymade Garments Sector (Textile Industry) in Bangladesh

Internal Control Practices of Readymade Garments Sector (Textile Industry) in Bangladesh

National Survey on Internal Quality Control for HbA1c Analytical Instruments in 331 Hospital Laboratories of China

The narrow gap of HbA1 value of mass fraction between "normal" (< 6.0%) and "diabetes" (≥ 6.5%) necessitates tight control of inter-assay standardization, assay precision, and trueness. This survey was initiated to obtain knowledge of the current situation of internal quality control (IQC) practice for HbA(1c) in China and find out the most appropriate quality specifications. Data of IQC for HbA(1c) in 331 institutions participating in the national proficiency testing (PT) programs in China were evaluated using four levels of quality specifications, and the percentages of laboratories meeting the quality requirement were calculated to find out the most appropriate quality specifications for control materials of HbA(1c) in China. The IQC data varied vastly among 331 clinical laboratories in China. The measurement of control materials covered a wide range from 4.52% to 12.24% (inter-quartile range) and there were significant differences among the CVs of different methods, including LPLC, CE-HPLC, AC-HPLC, immunoturbidimetry, and others. Among the four main methods, CE-HPLC and AC-HPLC achieved a better precision. As we can see, the performance of laboratories for HbA(1c) has yet to be improved. Clinical laboratories in China should improve their performance with a stricter imprecision criteria.

Mosque Fund Management: Issues on Accountability and Internal Controls

This study is intended to discuss the issues in mosque fund management systems particularly on accountability and internal control practices. Mosques which are classified as Non–Profit Organizations deal with public funds received from government, corporate and public donations, control over the financial activities in handling funds received and expended by the organizations have become an interesting area to be investigated. Based on the discussion, it is suggested that internal control practices by Jameq Mosques on both receipt of income and funds disbursement require significant attention.

Detecting Internal Control Problems Based on COSO and Islamic Perspective: Case on SMEs

Objective – The presence of Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) has been able to be livelihoods sources and absorb more labor, even though it has a relative smaller contribution of additional value compared to the Large-scale Enterprises. The number of economic actors of SMEs spread across area from urban to rural. However, SMEs have faced several serious problems. These problems are caused by the unique characteristics of SMEs itself. First, lack of managerial skills due to limited human resources and lack of monitoring which it is rarely conducted by the manager or the owner. Second, lack of information and technology to carry out operations. Both problems have great impacts in lack of internal controls. Third, SMEs also face problems in developing business scale, limited access to capital to the banks and financial institutions due to the lack of transparency. Therefore, this research aimed to detect to what extent of the problems arising in the application and assessment of internal controls performed by SMEs. Method – The research employs descriptive qualitative research method through direct observation, interview and business documentation owned by the company. Research materials are 29 SMEs consisting of 19 trading SMEs and 10 service SMEs. All SMEs are located in Malang city. Detection of application and assessment of internal controls in this study is based on the COSO framework and the Islamic perspective. Result – Internal control activities indicators apply the five principles of COSO framework which focused on three layers. First layer is self-assessment control area. Second layer is environment control area and the third layer is independent control area. While the Islamic perspective is focused on the internal control of business activities based on the Qur'an and Hadith. The results derive from application and assessment based on COSO framework and Islamic perspectives are complementary in improving the practice of internal control. Conclusion – Internal control problems detected in this study are generally caused by lack of managerial skills due to limited human resources, and lack of monitoring which it rarely done by manager or the owner, lack of technology and information to carry out the operations and moreover the accounting information system has not been well established. The results are expected to assist management in designing and implementing effective internal control system and provide assurance of easy access to capital. Keywords : Internal Control Problems, COSO framework, Islamic Perspective, SMEs

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Assessing and Analyzing Internal Control Practices in the Lodging Industry

Internal control matters have received extensive attention in academic literature, but the subject of internal controls in hotels is not well presented. This study aims to determine whether hotels that have been in business longer, are larger in size, and are publically owned have a better proxy of internal control. The results of this study indicate that there were no significant differences between a dependent variable internal control and independent variables: the number of rooms, years in business, and the ownership of hotels. More accurate results may be obtained if a larger sample size could be used for this study.

Internal Quality Control Practice of Thyroid Disease Related Tests and Imprecision Analysis in China

Internal quality control (IQC) has a long and well-established role in clinical laboratories and the quality of laboratories has achieved great improvement in China. However, the practice of IQC varies significantly between institutions and many problems still exists. Consequently, the Chinese National Center for Clinical Laboratories has been undertaking monthly nation-wide surveys of current IQC practice of tests since 2010 to monitor laboratory quality. Thyroid disease related tests were chosen for this research. Different numbers of laboratories in China participating national external quality assessment (EQA) schemes of Total Thyroxine (TT4), Total Triiodothyronine (TT3), Free Thyroxine (FT4) and Free Triiodothyronine (FT3) tests, and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) measurements, were required to report the IQC information though the national external quality assessment (EQA) network platform. Survey data showed significant variability in all aspects of IQC practice. More than half of the laboratories are using a single concentration level of IQC material and up to 28.6% of the laboratories only use 1(2s) or 1(3s) to monitor IQC results for FT3, TT3, FT4, TT4, and TSH. The medians of the average time intervals of two control tests for FT3, TT3, FT4, TT4, and TSH are 33.6, 35.4, 33.6, 35.4, and 33.6 hours, respectively, more or less 1.4 days. When quality specifications based on biological variation are applied to imprecision evaluation, only 46.3%, 52.1%, 31.3%, 12.8%, and 5.86% laboratories meet the minimum performance for FT3, TT3, FT4, and TT4, 24.5%, 23.6%, 12.8%, and 5.86% of the all meet the desirable performance, and 4.4%, 3.9%, 2.5% and 3.0% of the all meet the optimal performance. While it shows a higher percentage of acceptable laboratories (98.1%, 87.9% and 39.0% meeting the minimum, desirable and optimal performance, respectively) for TSH. Not-well-designed IQC practices may affect the effectiveness of laboratory IQC and, thus, the adequacy of a laboratory to monitor system performance. Consequently, IQC practice should be designed according to performance of measure method and instrument. Both clinical laboratories and the government should make efforts to improve quality of clinical testing to ensure the patients' safety.