Capping Report – Efficiency of Selected Processes at Select Retail Units, Texas 1 District
Background
This report presents a summary of the results of our self-initiated audits assessing the efficiency of selected processes at three selected retail units in the Texas 1 District (Project Number 22-092). These retail units included the Dallas, TX Main Post Office (MPO), the Mesquite, TX Post Office (PO), and the Wylie, TX PO in the Southern Area. We previously issued interim reports to district management for each of these retail units regarding the conditions we identified.
Objective, Scope, and Methodology
Our objective was to review cash and stamp inventories, daily reporting activities, clock ring errors, and employee separations at the Dallas MPO and the Mesquite and Wylie POs in the Texas 1 District.
To accomplish our objective, we reviewed data regarding inventories, daily reporting activities, clock ring errors, and employee separations to identify at risk transactions. We conducted physical counts of all cash, stamp, and money order inventories, reviewed stamp transfers, and evaluated selected internal controls. We also observed daily closing procedures, traced selected transactions to source documentation, and interviewed unit personnel. We determined the cause of clock ring errors and the steps taken to resolve them and reviewed compliance with procedures for separated employees, including suspending system access timely and collecting and protecting accountable property.
The Dallas MPO and the Mesquite and Wylie POs are the three retail units the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed during the weeks of February 7 and 14, 2022. We are issuing this capping report to provide the Postal Service with overall findings and recommendations for all three post offices.
We conducted these audits from February through July 2022 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards and included such tests of internal controls as we considered necessary under the circumstances. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objective. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objective. We discussed our observations and conclusions with management on June 29, 2022, and included their comments where appropriate.
We relied on computer-generated data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) and Retail Systems Software inventory reports. We did not test the validity of controls over this system; however, we verified the accuracy of the data by reviewing related documentation, tracing selected information to supporting source records, and interviewing knowledgeable Postal Service employees. We determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of these reports.
Results Summary
We did not identify any issues with selected internal controls regarding employee separations. However, we identified issues regarding cash and inventory at the Dallas MPO and the Mesquite PO and an issue regarding daily financial reporting at the Wylie PO. In addition, we identified issues regarding clock ring errors at the Dallas MPO (see Table 1).
