What internal control procedure(s) would be most effective in preventing the following errors or fraudulent acts?
a. An inadvertent data entry error caused an employee’s wage rate to be overstated in the payroll master file.
b. A fictitious employee payroll record was added to the payroll master file.
c. During data entry, the hours worked on an employee’s time card for one day were accidentally entered as 80 hours, instead of 8 hours.
d. A computer operator used an online terminal to increase her own salary.
e. A factory supervisor failed to notify the HRM department that an employee had been fired. Consequently, paychecks continued to be issued for that employee. The supervisor pocketed and cashed those paychecks.
f. A factory employee punched a friend’s time card in at 1:00 P.M. and out at 5:00 P.M. while the friend played golf that afternoon.
g. A programmer obtained the payroll master file and increased his salary.
h. Some time cards were lost during payroll preparation; consequently, when paychecks were distributed, several employees complained about not being paid.
i. A large portion of the payroll master file was destroyed when the disk pack containing the file was used as a scratch file for another application.
j. The organization was fined $5000 for making a late quarterly payroll tax payment to the IRS.