Patient Administration - Army Publishing Directorate - U.S. Army

lost. The MSA must have the internal controls codified in writing and they must be reviewed and updated annually as
required. As a minimum the controls must provide—
a. Physical security of U.S. assets. Included in the definition of assets are—
(1) Checks,
(2) Negotiable instruments,
(3) Documents representing assets (accounts receivable),
(4) Cash,
(5) Equipment,
(6) Stamps,
(7) Bonds, and
(8) Vouchers.
b. Separation of duties to preclude one individual from having complete control over a financial transaction. For
example, no single person should be able to bill, collect, disburse, and account for a transaction.
c. Physical separation of persons handling cash or engaged in complementary activities. An example of a complementary
activity is billing and collecting.
d. Task assignment so that employees charged with receiving mail do not participate in the accounting, billing,
collection, or accounting process. Checks or cash received in the mail must be logged in by the receiving employees
and transferred by transmittal letter to the MSA.
e. A mechanism to track custody of public funds, assets, and vouchers.
f. Proper protection of safe keys and combinations.
g. Exclusive control by employees with custody of public funds over those funds. Oral instructions concerning funds
of the Government, vouchers, records, etc., will not supersede published regulations. Instructions that do not appear in
regulations must be in writing.
h. Briefings to employees on their responsibilities concerning internal controls and liability for losses. The briefings
must cover as a minimum the concepts of presumption of negligence, loss burden of proof, and personal liability for
loss.
i. A written standing operating procedure (SOP) for each position that has responsibility for Government assets. It is
the supervisor’s responsibility to ensure that there are written SOPs.
j. Procedures in place to guarantee computer security.
k. A lock box located outside the cashier cage for duplicate copies of collection and disbursing vouchers. (This is
applicable only to those MSA activities that operate a cashier operation.)
l. Transfers of documents and funds to the supporting DAO on sequentially numbered transmittal letters.
m. PTFs the same level of security as Government funds.
n. Adequate physical security to protect the assets entrusted to the MSA. Physical security is provided by safes,
locked cash drawers, lockable fire proof files, secure limited access doors, cages, alarm systems, and other devices.
o. A mechanism to account for and inventory bills and other evidence of debt which are held in hard copy format
and not reflected in the primary financial reports. These evidences of debt should be periodically reconciled to the
controlling records and reported in the related financial statements.
AR 40–400 27 January 2010
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