The suppliers invoices and monthly statements are scanned into Zero by the Creditors Clerk, by taking a photo of the invoices and monthly statements. An artificial intelligence system reads the invoices and monthly statements and then converts them to machine-readable text. The Creditors Clerk compares the invoices and monthly statements with the captured data before he accepts the transaction to be processed. Creditors reconciliations are performed on a monthly basis by the Accountant. In order to ensure proper security and control around payments, payments are made by means of cheques. Pixel intends to use the electronic fund transfer (EFT) method of the system instead of the manual payment process that is currently in use. The EFT method will place reliance on intelligent technology which will decide when payments are made. The information in the system will be integrated with the banks electronic fund transfer software in order to allow the bank's system to be updated via an internet connection. If the company decides to proceed with this option, a proper feasibility study will be performed before the implementation can take place. Specialist Consultants from the bank will be contracted to write the software program which will integrate the system with the banks software according to the companys specific needs. The Specialist Consultants will also be responsible for the testing of the EFT module. These Specialist Consultants are the only specialists with the necessary knowledge to perform the conversion. The management of Pixel realised that there would be business risks related to the fact that the company would be connected to the bank and the internet. They are willing to carry the risk but are unsure of whether there are any other risks that they should consider.

Loadshedding

South Africa experienced severe disruptions in power due to the loadshedding implemented by Eskom during the 2023 financial year. Management expressed their concern regarding information lost due to damage that occurred to the information technology (IT) system as a result of frequent power cuts. Live data as well as backed-up data were lost. During one of these power outages, it was suspected that an employee hacked into the IT system and gained unauthorised access to some company information. He made unauthorised changes to the employee and supplier Masterfile such as changes to salary rates and adding his own banking details to certain supplier profiles. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) immediately investigated the security breach. His proposal to appoint an external IT company to administer Pixels IT system was accepted and implemented by the Board

Required

Refer to the information under the heading payments to creditors and loadshedding, describe the general and application controls that Pixel Clothing (Pty) Ltd does not have, but should implement over the employee and supplier Masterfile to prevent incidents such as the one mentioned in the scenario