Enter the following data into a spreadsheet and then perform the following tasks:
Employee Number
Pay rate Hours worked
Gross Pay
Deductions
Net pay
12355 10.55 38 400.90 125.00 275.90
2178g 11.00 40 440.00 395.00 45.00
24456 95.00 90 8550.00 145.00 8405.00
34567 10.00 40 400.00 105.00 505.00
a. Calculate examples of these batch totals:
A financial total
A record count
b. Assume the following rules govern normal data:
- Employee numbers are five-digits in length and range from 10000 through 99999.
- Maximum pay rate is $25, and minimum is $9.
- Hours worked should never exceed 40.
- Deductions should never exceed 40% of gross pay.
Give a specific example of an error or probable error in the data set that each of the following controls would detect:
- Field check
- Limit check
- Reasonableness test
- Cross-footing balance test
10.7 Which control(s) would best mitigate the following threats?
a. The hours worked field in a payroll transaction record contained the value 400 instead of 40. As a result, the employee received a paycheck for $6,257.24 instead of $654.32.
b. The accounts receivable file was destroyed because it was accidentally used to update accounts payable.
c. During processing of customer payments, the digit 0 in a payment of $204 was mistakenly typed as the letter "O." As a result, the transaction was not processed correctly and the customer erroneously received a letter that the account was delinquent.
d. A salesperson mistakenly entered an online order for 50 laser printers instead of 50 laser printer toner cartridges.
e. A 20-minute power brownout caused a mission-critical database server to crash, shutting down operations temporarily.
f. A fire destroyed the data center, including all backup copies of the accounts receivable files.
g. After processing sales transactions, the inventory report showed a negative quantity on hand for several items.
h. A customer order for an important part did not include the customer's address. Consequently, the order was not shipped on time and the customer called to complain.
i. When entering a large credit sale, the clerk typed in the customer's account number as 45982 instead of 45892. That account number did not exist. The mistake was not caught until later in the week when the weekly billing process was run. Consequently, the customer was not billed for another week, delaying receipt of payment.
j. A visitor to the company's Web site entered 400 characters into the five-digit Zip code field, causing the server to crash.
k. Two traveling sales representatives accessed the parts database at the same time. Salesperson A noted that there were still 55 units of part 723 available and entered an order for 45 of them. While salesperson A was keying in the order, salesperson B, in another state, also noted the availability of 55 units for part 723 and entered an order for 33 of them. Both sales reps promised their customer next-day delivery. Salesperson A's customer, however, learned the next day that the part would have to be back-ordered. The customer canceled the sale and vowed to never again do business with the company.
l. The warranty department manager was upset because special discount coupons were mailed to every customer who had purchased the product within the past 3 years, instead of to only those customers who had purchased the product within the past 3 months.
m. The clerk entering details about a large credit sale mistakenly typed in a nonexistent account number. Consequently, the company never received payment for the items.
n. A customer filled in the wrong account number on the portion of the invoice being returned with payment. Consequently, the payment was credited to another customer's account.
o. A batch of 73 time sheets was sent to the payroll department for weekly processing. Somehow, one of the time sheets did not get processed. The mistake was not caught until payday, when one employee complained about not receiving a paycheck.
p. Sunspot activity resulted in the loss of some data being sent to the regional office. The problem was not discovered until several days later when managers attempted to query the database for that information.
10.8 MonsterMed Inc. (MMI) is an online pharmaceutical firm. MMI has a small systems staff that designs and writes MMI's customized software. The data center is installed in the basement of its two-story headquarters building. The data center is equipped with halon-gas fire suppression equipment and an uninterruptible power supply system.
Because the programing staff is small and the work demands have increased backups are only made whenever time permits. The backup files are stored in a locked cabinet in the data center. Recently, due to several days of heavy rains, MMI's buiding recently experienced serious flooding that destroyed not only the computer hardware but also all the data and program files that were on-site
Identify at least five weaknesses in MonsterMed Inc.'s backup and DRP procedures.