Question

What are the differences among control environment, a pervasive control plan and business process control plan? Provide examples.

Answer 1

Ans.

Process control plans are those controls particular to a specific process or subsystem, such as inventory or human resources, or to a particular mode of processing events, such as online or batch. Process control plans are the subject of the control framework introduced in Chapter 9.

Another useful and common way to classify controls is in relation to the timing of their occurrence. Preventive control plans stop problems from occurring. Detectivecontrol plans discover that problems have occurred. Corrective control plansrectify problems that have occurred. Let’s use the WTC tragedy to illustrate. By operating two computer processing sites—one primary and one mirror site—companies located in the WTC could prevent the loss of their computer processing capabilities and the data and programs stored on the computers located in the WTC (i.e., duplicate copies would reside at the mirror site). Smoke and fire detectors could detect fires in the building that inevitably lead to the loss of processing capabilities. Other monitoring devices could detect the loss of phones, data communications, and processing capabilities. These devices, operating at an organization’s facilities outside the WTC area, could have alerted company personnel to the loss of resources in the area of the WTC. Also, organizations can subscribe to services that will provide notification in the event of disaster. Finally, backup copies of programs and data could have been loaded onto computers at sites outside the WTC area to reinstate computer processing and related services. These are corrective controls because they replace data and services that were lost