Accounting Audit Trails

During Live Operations, the Order Processing, File Maintenance, and Reports and Inquiry menus provide functions used during day-to-day operation of the system.

To process orders, a six-step procedure is followed: (1) order entry; (2) printing of orders or backorders, if necessary; (3) shipping confirmation; (4) printing of picking lists and invoices, as well as shipping papers or bills of lading if needed; (5) printing the invoices journal, and (6) posting, where records are integrated with permanent master files.

Order Entry and Invoicing

During entry of sales orders, the system performs validation checks on all data entered. After shipping is confirmed, the invoice is printed. Other special forms may be printed as well.

Journal Printing

After invoice forms are printed they must be printed on a journal before they can be posted. The journals should be reviewed or edited by the operator, or someone else in the department who can verify the entered data. Save the journals; they are an important part of your audit trail.

During journal printing, the system performs validation checks on the data to ensure that it can be posted correctly. Errors and warnings may be printed on the journal and summarized at the end of the journal. Invoices that print with errors will not be allowed to post until the errors are corrected and the journal is reprinted without errors.

This process ensures that data is verified twice before being posted to permanent master files, and gives added assurance that erroneously entered data will not be posted to permanent files.

Invoice Posting

Once orders have been entered and invoiced, and the journal has been printed and verified, the invoices are ready to be posted to your permanent master files. This process usually involves adding records to a system-maintained detail file, and summarizing the detail for historical records. The outstanding orders file is also updated during posting.