No PDF currently available.
Summary: The handling of input transactions rejected by a system's edit, validation, and update routines is a critical processing point in automated financial accounting system design because it determines, to a great extent, the reliability of a system's output. Unless handled properly, rejected transactions may be lost entirely or never corrected. Unauthorized personnel may correct errors in violation of the basic control principle of separation of duties. Corrections, if made, may be untimely. The corrected transactions may be allowed to bypass the normal routines, and the audit trail may be lost. Error reject handling in today's systems is frequently achieved through a combination of manual and automated means. Rejected transactions are dated; assigned a unique, sequential identifier; assigned error codes; and recorded onto an error file by the computer to prevent loss of error rejects. Rejected transactions remain in the error file until corrected. Accounting management ensures that the error reject listing is received according to a predetermined schedule, logged in, and controlled until all errors have been researched and corrected. In theory, all transactions are cleared from the rotating error file prior to the close of the current financial reporting period so that transactions are reported in the appropriate reporting period and the system reports reflect complete and accurate information.
