The cashier keeps physical custody of the assets received, and depositing remittances daily at a local bank is part of the custody function.
It is appropriate for the person who receives checks as remittances by mail to endorse the checks with a restrictive endorsement. This should be done as soon as the checks are received, to prevent them being negotiated by an unauthorized party if they are stolen. A restrictive endorsement is an endorsement stamp that says "For Deposit Only" and gives the name of the account to which the check must be deposited.
The cashier keeps physical custody of the assets received, and posting the receipts to the accounts receivable ledger cards is a recordkeeping function, not a custody function. The person performing the custody function should have no access to the customer records. If that person did have access to customer records, that person could perform a fraudulent activity called "lapping." In lapping, an employee receives a cash payment on a customer's account. Instead of applying the cash payment to that customer's account, though, the employee pockets the cash. The employee would then apply the next check that comes in on another customer's account to the first customer's account instead of to the correct customer's account; and apply a third customer's payment to the second customer's account, and so forth. The customers would see the amount they paid credited on their accounts, but it would not be their payment that was being credited to them. The employee could continue pocketing cash receipts like that for some time.
The cashier keeps physical custody of the assets received, and preparing the bank deposit slip is part of the custody function. However, this would be true only for checks received, not for cash. Remittances received from the mailroom should be only checks, because cash would not be received through the mail. It would be acceptable for the person receiving checks to immediately endorse them with a restrictive endorsement and then to prepare the bank deposit slip. It would not be appropriate for a person receiving cash to also prepare the deposit slip, however, because it would be very easy for that person to pocket some of the cash. There is much more potential for fraud with cash than there is with checks.
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