INPUT CONTROLS

GROUP 3
TATENDA BENJAMIN
PRINCE B. NCUBE
ARNOLD K. MHAZO

VALIDATION AND ERROR

CONTROLS
Input validation controls are
used to identify errors in
data or instructions before
the data is processed
or the instructions are
executed.

DATA INPUT VALIDATION

CHECKS
Data should be validated as soon as
possible after it has been captured and
as close as possible to the
source of the data.
Controls to check the validity of input
data can be exercised at four level

Field Checks
The validation logic applied to the field in the
input validation program does not depend on
other fields within the record or other records within
the batch.
Several field checks can be applied; missing
data/blanks, alphabetics/numerics, range, check
digit, size

Record Checks
With a record check, the validation logic applied
to a field depends on the logical field's
interrelationships with the other fields in a record
The following record checks can be applied;
Reasonableness, Valid sign-numerics, sequence
checks.

Batch Checks
They apply validation logic to fields and records
based based on their interrelationships with
controls established for the batch
Batch checks include control totals, sequence
checks, size.

File Checks
They ensure correct files are input to a production
run of an application system.
These checks are especially important for master
files where reconstruction may be difficult and
costly.
Internal label, generation number, retention date,
and contol totals are checked

DESIGN OF THE DATA INPUT

VALIDATION PROGRAM
A well designed data input
program ensures that the quality
of the data entering an application
system
is high, and it facilitates correction
and resubmission of errors. The
auditor is interested in three
aspects; how data is validated,
how errors are handled and how
errors are reported.

Data Validation
System specifications often give a programmer
some indication of errors to be expected.
Start the design of the validation routines by
specifying what should be correct and then identify
deviations that may occur.
The input program must identify as many errors
as possible in a record or batch.
Another requirement in writing an input program
is ensuring its ability to recover when errors
occur.
The input program where possible should correct
errors automatically.
Documentation of the input program is essential.

Handling of Errors
The validation program must report errors and
exercise careful control to ensure the errors are
corrected.
Upon receiving error reports, users must identify
reasons for errors, correct the data and
resubmit the data for validation once again.
If errors are not cleared off an error file within a
reasonable time period, the input validation
program should remind the users that the errors
still await correction.
The user must decide on the number and types of
errors that can be tolerated before further
processing of the data through the system.

Reporting of Errors
Errors must be reported in a way that facilitates fast and accurate
correction of errors

Screen Error Messages

Error messages must be clear and concise, courteous and neutral
The input validation program also must provide various levels of error
messages.

Printed Error Messages.

The report file must be sorted before printing to facilitate error
correction.e.g errors to be
corrected by a particular user may be sorted together.
The field in error can be identified by printing indicators such as upward
arrows.
Space should exist on the error report for the signature of the person
correcting the errors, this
gives an audit trail for errors corrected.
The error messages printed must clearly state the nature of the error,
where possible printing
error codes instead of error messages should be avoided.
At the end of the error report, summary statistics should be printed for
transactions processed
and the different types of errors identified.
The frequency of each error type also should be printed.

INSTRUCTION INPUT
VALIDATION CHECKS
Instruction input entered via a job control
language or interactive dialog also must
be validated. The
auditor should understand the types of
validation that should be carried out by a
job control language or
interactive dialog and the way in which
errors should be reported as a basis for
evaluating the quality
of the language and the likelihood of user
errors being made.

Lexical Validation
The language evaluates each word entered by a user.
As words are formed from characters, the language
must establish rules whereby strings of
characters are recognized as discrete words.
Usually this recognition occurs via boundary characters
and delimiters.

Syntactic Validation
The language reads a string of words identified and
validated by the lexical analyzer and
attempts to determine the sequence of operations that the
string of words is intended to invoke.
The syntax analyzer validates the syntax of an
instruction by parsing the string of words entered
to determine whether it conforms to a particular rule in the
grammar of the language.

Semantic Validation
During semantic validation, the language completes its
analysis of the meaning of the
instruction entered.
The boundary between syntactic validation and
semantic validation is often obscure.
During Semantic, the language might check that
variables to be multiplied together are numeric
types and not alphabetic or alphanumeric types.
The language might prevent a comparison of two
numeric values that would be meaningless
e.g the salaries of employees with their weights.
The quality of semantic analysis depends on how how
well the constraints(logical restrictions)
surrounding the data on which the language operates can
be expressed.
The language can check that the operations to be
undertaken on the data items or the results
produced conform to the constraints expressed for the
data items in the data definition.

Reporting of Errors
Guidelines for reporting errors that
were discussed earlier for data validation
apply also to
instruction validation.
Error messages must communicate to
users completely and meaningfully as
possible to the
nature of errors made during transaction
input.
If the language fail to identify an error,
unknown to the user, results may be
produced that are
meaningless.

AUDIT TRAIL CONTROLS

Audit trail controls relating
to input validation and
error control maintain
chronology of events from
the time data is validated
to the time data is
corrected.

Accounting Audit Trail

When data is validated, a time and date stamp should be
attached so the timeliness of data
validation and error correction and resubmission can be
assessed.
If an input validation programme identifies an error, it must
generate and attach a unique error
number to the data in error unless the data can be corrected
immediately. In this way the path of
the erroneous data can be traced until the time of the correction.

Operations Audit Trail

The operations audit trail should maintain a record of the
nature and number of errors made
during data and instruction input, the resources consumed to
detect and correct errors, and the
elapsed time between error identification and error correction.
The amount of central processor time used to detect particular
types of errors.
Periodically the operations audit trail should be analyzed to
determine whether users need
retraining, specific types of data input or instruction input need to
be redesigned, or input
validation programs need to be rewritten.

EXISTENCE CONTROLS
Existence controls must
enable input validation
programs and files of valid
data and erroneous
data to be reestablished in
the event of destruction or
loss.