Question

Mary Smith is the controller for ABC Printing Service. Mary has been putting in a lot of overtime; therefore, she has been allowed hire an assistant. Mary’s assistant is a bright, high school graduate, but he has never taken an accounting class. Mary is trying to decide which accounting activities could be delegated to her assistant. Mary is willing to give the assistant a few simple instructions on how to complete each task, but she doesn’t have time to teach the assistant to be an accountant.

For each task listed, state whether Mary should continue to do the work or delegate the task to her assistant. Please explain each answer.

1. List the account balances from the general ledger in the Trial Balance columns of the end-of-period spreadsheet.
2. Add the Debit and Credit columns of the trial balance.
3. Make the adjusting entries on the spreadsheet.
4. Complete the spreadsheet.
5. Type the formal financial statements using the data from the Income Statement and Balance Sheet columns of the spreadsheet.
6. Journalize and post the adjusting entries.

Answer 1

1. She can delegate the work of listing the account balances from the general ledger in Tb columns of the end of period spreadsheet as it involves simple math. One simple explanation is sufficient for her assistant to complete the task

2. Mary can delegate the the task of adding the debit and credit columns of TB

3. She should not delegate th work of making adjustment entries on the spreadsheet as her assistant has no idea about accounting and adjustment entries requires good kolwedge of accounting experience

4. Mary can delegate the task of completing the spreadsheet as it involves simple task

5. mary should not delegate the work of typing formal statements using the data from the Income statement and balancesheet columns of the speadsheet as it requires exprience of analysing and preparation skills of Income statement and balancesheet

6. Journalising and posting adjustmnt entries requires good knowledge about accounting, hence she should not delegate the above work