Answer
For verifying sundry creditors for goods supplied, the under mentioned steps are recommended:
Evaluate the system of internal control on purchases of goods and payments therefore.
Obtain a list of sundry creditors and check it with the creditor‟s ledger.
Scan the creditor’s accounts and judge the nature of the balance by its age, nature of supplies, and disputes regarding admissibility of the balances.
Test check stock records supplier’s invoices and challans, cheques paid and credit notes and trace them to the creditor ledger.
Seek confirmation of selected balance (including nil balance) by asking the client to write to the creditors with the request that they should write directly to the auditor.
Check credits raised on account of supplies towards the end of the year to ensure that they are normal and not for manipulation of an account.
Enquire about the reasons, if any, for changes remaining unpresented for a long time.
Balance due to the companies under the same management, subsidiaries and companies in which directors are interested must be screened carefully.
Ensure that the total of the amount in the sundry creditors list agrees with the balance in the control accounts.
Go through the goods Inwards Book for two or three weeks before the close of the year and for a week or so after the close and see that for all goods received before the close, invoices have been passed through the books and that goods were actually received for all invoices entered in the books. Similarly, the goods Outward Book should be seen to ascertain whether there are instances of goods returned to the suppliers without there being an appropriation debit Note.
Compare the total amount outstanding at the end of the year with the figure at the end of the previous year and, having regard to the scale of operations during the year, see that any material deviation is properly explained.