Computer Auditing

Pizza Fuel (PF) is a boutique pizza restaurant chain with over 40 outlets around New Zealand. It employs around 55 full-time and 300 part-time staff in the restaurants and a further 15 at head office in Christchurch. Customers can either dine in at one of PF's restaurants or order takeaways over the Internet. The turnover of restaurant staff is high, in common with most of the fast food industry. PF's marketing strategy promises customers the freshest ingredients possible in every pizza they make, or their money back.

All pizzas are cooked to order on the premises, and ingredients are purchased locally by outlets from centrally-approved suppliers. These suppliers are given online access to each outlet's computerisedinventoryrecordsandshipingredientsautomaticallyonceinventorylevelsfallbelowcriticallevels. A camera located above each pizza preparation station uses AI to ensure even and adequate distribution of ingredients.

Each dine in section of a restaurant operates a computerised billing system, which records the customers' orders taken from the waiters' networked iPads. The system produces a completed bill for the customer, showing food, drink, GST and gratuities as separate items, and accumulates sales values for daily reconciliation to cash register totals. The sales data is transmitted real-time to head office via the Internet.

Takeaways are ordered through PF's website. Customers choose their menu options and the PF branch from which the order will be collected. Once payment is made via credit card, customers are sent a confirmation email and advised about the approximate order preparation time. At this time the order is communicated to the relevant restaurant.

All staff are paid centrally by the main payroll system. The restaurant managers update staff lists for new and terminated employees each week, and these are transmitted to head office for the following week's payroll processing.

Suppliers are paid centrally, and all accounting is carried out using networked PCs and file servers at head office.

REQUIRED:

You are a senior auditor in the firm that audits PF. The audit manager responsible for this audit is aware that you possess some knowledge of information systems auditing, and would like your advice in planning for the forthcoming audit.

(a) Based on the information in the scenario above, classify PF's use of computers as minor, significant, or dominant, making sure you clearly justify the decision. Indicate what impact decision would have on overall audit strategy for auditing PF's systems.

(b) Identify and explain four (4) input controls that you believe should be in place in relation to the

input of information into PF's online takeaway ordering system.