1. For each
of the scenarios listed below, and using Computer Controls for Organizations
and Accounting Information Systems, identify the appropriate control(s) that
would have prevented each one from happening.
A. Working
through the main control console, the night-shift computer operator made a
change in a payroll program to alter his pay rate.
B. A
customer payment recorded on a remittance advice as $55.05 was entered into the
computer as $550.50.
C. A new program
to process accounts receivable was unreliable and would not handle common
exceptions. The programmer who wrote the program recently quit the organization
because he was repeatedly asked to document this program (which he never did
do).
D. The
current payroll master tape file was loaded incorrectly mounted as the output
for a accounts receivable update and was thus overwritten.
E. A weekly
payroll check issued to an hourly employee was based on 96 hours rather than 46
that she really worked.
F. The master
inventory file, contained on a removable disk, was destroyed by a small fire
next to the area where it was stored. The company had to take a special
complete inventory to reestablish the file.
G. The
magnetic tape containing accounts receivable transactions could not be located.
A data processing supervisor said that its label could have been removed thus
making it available for use in other processing.
H. In
preparing payroll checks, the computer skipped 10 out of 550 checks that should
have been processed. The error was not detected until the checks were
distributed and the employees complained.
I. A sales
order document was coded with an invalid customer account code (seven digits
rather than eight). The error was not detected until the updating run, when it
was found that there was no such account to which the transaction could be
posted.
J. During
data entry of customer payments, the digit 0 in a payment of $123.40 was
mistakenly entered as the letter O. As a result, the transaction was not posted.
K. A
programmer entered a special routine in the program that calculates interest
payments on customer accounts one evening after work. Her routine summed the
fraction of a penny of each customer’s interest, which otherwise would be
rounded off, and posted it to her own account at the bank.
L. A
salesman entering a customer order from iPad entered an incorrect but valid
product number. As a result, the customer received a delivery of
100,000 pounds of industrial salt rather than industrial
sugar.
M. A customer
called to inquire as to why he received a statement for 5 cents amount due when
postage cost was 42 cents.
