Week 9 Discussion — Who Guards the Cash? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

At the end of Month 3, the bicycle shop's (illustrative) bank statement said $8,450 and its Cash account said $8,851. The bank reconciliation explained the whole $401 gap and landed both sides on $8,500, and one of its items was the shop's own swapped digits on check No. 209. This week you met six of the Green Book's categories of control activities, segregation of duties and its limit, the petty cash fund, and the bank reconciliation.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: A small business has only a few people, so it cannot split every cash duty. If you could split only one pair of jobs at the bicycle shop, which pair would you split first, and which other control from the Green Book's six categories would you lean on to cover what is left? Use segregation of duties, collusion, and reasonable assurance in your answer.

Option B: Look at the four book-side items in the shop's reconciliation: the $25 service charge, the $300 NSF check, the $10 of interest earned, and the $36 error on check No. 209. Which one should worry a founder most, and what control would you add in response? Use the bank reconciliation, the book side, and at least one of the six control categories in your answer.

There is no single right answer. The arithmetic is not in question here: both sides reach $8,500, and only the book-side items get journal entries. What is open is which risk matters most and which control is worth its cost.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Working on your own: this version of the discussion is written entirely from your own reasoning, in your own words.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, name the one pair of cash jobs you would split first and the other control category you would lean on, using segregation of duties, collusion, and reasonable assurance; for Option B, pick the book-side item that should worry a founder most and the control you would add, using the bank reconciliation and at least one control category.
• Keep the arithmetic plain: both sides of the reconciliation reach $8,500, and only the four book-side items get journal entries. If you write about a real business you know, describe its cash habits in general terms and state no figures from it.
• Give your judgment, with a reason.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: offer the strongest case for the other view, point out a term or figure a classmate misstated, or name a control that would test their claim. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option B, and the $300 NSF check worries me most, even though the $36 error is the shop's own mistake. The swapped digits on check No. 209 are a recording slip the reconciliation caught, and the 9 test points straight at it. The NSF check means a customer's payment never arrived, and the shop's books treated it as cash for a while. I would add a control over information processing: hold larger customer checks in Accounts Receivable until they clear. The limit is that a control like that slows down honest customers too.

Notice how it names a specific item and its figure, ties it to a control category by name, and admits what its own idea costs. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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