Skylar Daniels was recently promoted to Senior Auditor in the accounting department. One of his primary responsibilities is to assist with the training of the accounting interns that only had minimal accounting education/experience at this point in their careers. As part of the training curriculum, the interns are required to go through the months transactions and manually book them, rather than using the computerized accounting software. This is intended to give them a better understanding of the mechanics behind the system.

During his review of one of the interns work, he discovered that an accountant was entering transactions without any supporting documentation.

Another intern was erroneously reversing all of the entries related to cash, by debiting it for decreases and crediting it for increases. When asked why he was doing this, he mentioned that his personal checking account register showed a debit for decreases/withdrawals and a credit for increases/deposits.

A third intern questioned the need to have two separate entries for every transaction, claiming that it duplicates the work for no apparent reason. If we are paying a bill, why cant we just show the cash decrease?, he asked.

Discuss the following:

How would you respond to the first intern regarding the need for supporting documentation?
How would you respond to the second intern regarding the increases and decreases to cash? Is he correct?
How would you respond to the third intern regarding the need for multiple entries for each transaction?