We have a team that gets together and surprises our branches with surprise audits of their cash drawers first thing in the morning, usually on paydays. One of the "members" is the VP in Human Resources which consists of two individuals. That person and the assistant. I find it a bit disturbing that this person is involved in these audits and it seems like a conflict of interest. Does this practice seem acceptable to others?

Not sure where conflict of interest comes in but IMO It can be anybody. Some banks prefer senior officers perform the audit but as far as I know there is no requirement to do so. I've even seen tellers cash count other tellers cash while the branch mgr and ops officer count the vault and chief tellers cash.

As a bank president certainly I didn't think it was beneath me to participate when I could in this effort.

I have found it common practice to use branch officers to asssist the internal audit department in conducting surprise cash counts. Particularily if you're doing a complete count of a large branch, you only have a short period of time to get the count completed and you generally can't accomplish the count with only one or two (or three) auditors. Some guidelines you might consider would be to have audit staff handle the vault and assign out the teller drawers to the available officer. Officers from the teller area / chain of command shouldn't be used.

just a tip...it's not much of a surprise if it's done at the same time , and always on a payday..Tellers will quickly figure it out..