Once a month, you may receive a bank
statement that lists the deposits and with-
drawals that have been added to and subtracted
from your account balance. If you wrote any
checks, the statement may also be accompanied
by copies of your canceled checks.
New forms of payment are now arising that
don’t involve checks at all. Retailers, such as
grocery stores, now allow customers to pay for
merchandise by swiping their bank cards at
check-out, causing an immediate transfer of
funds out of a bank account. Banks are allow-
ing regular monthly bills, such as utility bills,
to be paid directly out of a checking account,
using electronic fund transfers. Internet pay-
ments can be made by using services such as
PayPal®, which will make payments to third
parties directly out of a checking account. In all
of these cases, you need to verify actual fund
transfers with the correct amounts by compar-
ing your bank statement with electronic in-
voices, receipts, and other evidence of payment.
Many banks are making real-time checking
account information available on the Internet to
account owners. Thus, account owners using
this feature are now able to manage and control
their accounts in a more timely way.
Like individuals, businesses must control
their cash and other assets to guard against er-
rors and fraud. For example, The Walt Disney
Companyhas extensive cash collection and con-
trol activities at its theme parks. Cash is col-
lected, counted, and deposited from the parking
lot, admissions office, and on-site retail shops.
Disney also accepts credit card payments at its
theme parks and mall-based Disney stores. In
addition, Disney collects cash in the form of
checks and electronic fund transfers for adver-
tising revenues on the ABC, A&E, and ESPN
networks and for ticket sales from theatrical re-
leases of motion pictures that are paid by the
movie exhibitors.
In this chapter, we will discuss how com-
panies like Walt Disney control their cash and
other assets. We begin by discussing the im-
portance of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that was
passed by Congress to improve the financial
controls and reporting practices of companies.The Walt Disney Company
© RICHARD DREW/AP PHOTO