George Beemster, CPA, is auditing the financial statements of the Louisville Sales Corporation, which recently installed a new computer. The following comments have been extracted from Mr. Beemster's notes on computer operations and the processing and control of shipping notices and customers invoices:

To minimize inconvenience, Louisville converted without change its existing data processing system. The computer vendor supervised the conversion and has provided training to all computer department employees (except input data operators) in systems design, operations, and programming.

Each computer run is assigned to a specific employee, who is responsible for making program changes, running the program, and answering questions. This procedure has the advantage of eliminating the need for records of computer operations, because each employee is responsible for his or her own computer runs.

At least one computer department employee remains in the computer room during office hours, and only computer department employees have keys to the computer room.

System documentation consists of those materials furnished by the computer vendora set of record formats and program listings. These and the tape library are kept on a desk in the computer department.

The data processing manager considered the desirability of programmed controls but decided to retain the manual controls from the existing system.

Company products are shipped directly from public warehouses, which forward shipping notices to general accounting. There a billing clerk enters the price of the item and accounts for the numerical sequence of shipping notices from each warehouse. The billing clerk also prepares daily control totals of the units shipped and the unit prices.

Shipping notices and control totals are forwarded to the computer department for data entry and processing. Extensions are made on the computer. Output consists of invoices (in six copies) and a daily sales register. The daily sales register shows the aggregate totals of units shipped and unit prices, which the computer operator compares to the control totals Required:

Indicate the weaknesses that you see in the system and your recommendations for correcting these weaknesses.