Here's the scenario: You work for a public company that requires internal control documentation to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. You have just been given the task of completing a flowchart for a process that you know nothing about.

You have seen flowcharts before, such as the ones in Chapter 2 of your AIS textbook, but your employer requires a specific flowcharting style that is used throughout the company. What do you do next? First, you ask if there is already a written description of the process. Thankfully, someone else has already interviewed the employees and created the written narrative for the process. Second, you translate the written narrative into a Table of Entities and Activities, which is an outline of the tasks performed by each person or department involved in the process. Third, you translate the Table of Entities and Activities into a Document Flowchart using Microsoft Excel.