 Hello and welcome to the session in which we will discuss output controls as part of application controls So it's very important to look at the big picture before we start When we have an accounting information system or information system in general But since we are accounting students and CPA candidate, we're looking at the accounting information system It's very important that the that the information that we produce is correct Reliable has data integrity so on and so forth So any control is a place to check ourselves before the final product is produced So in our journey, we have what's called input first we have to input the data at this stage We have input controls so we do have controls at the input level And if you remember we had a whole session about input controls and we said those are the most important controls Why because if you keep the garbage if you keep the The infection the errors out of the system. That's that's the best way to do it But let's assume the input data failed Now the data has been processed when we process the data. We also have controls about processing the data and We talked about those controls in the prior session. They're called processing controls Once the data has been processed now we have output the output usually a report a summary Usually some sort of a data that we that we are producing in form of financial statement or in form of list of items or in form of You know, maybe job order costing report or process costing report so on and so forth So in this session, if we did not catch the error at the input level and the processing level Well, we do have some output controls But again, this is the last control that we discuss because once the data is out there, it's being used Well, if it's no good, then we failed at all at all three levels. So this is the last step So here we're focusing on the deck detecting any errors after processing So this is a post processing as you can see it's a post processing step Now someone has to review the data. The output control is someone will have to review the data But that someone has to be knowledgeable They have to know what they are reading if something is out of sync if something does not make any sense The person should be able to point out this and this is why we rely on expert here someone who's familiar with the data So they have certain Expectation and if those expectations are not there if there's something out of whack They should be able to pinpoint and they should be able to see what's going on So just like with the input processing We have certain common output controls that we need to discuss when it comes to Output controls before we proceed any further. I have a public announcement about my company Farhat lectures comm Farhat accounting lectures is a supplemental educational tool That's gonna help you with your CPA exam preparation as well as your accounting courses My CPA material is aligned with your CPA review course such as Becker Roger Wiley Gleam miles my accounting courses are aligned with your accounting courses Broken down by chapter and topics my resources consist of Lectures multiple choice questions through false questions as well as exercises go ahead start your free trial today No obligation no credit card required What are some common output controls? Well, one thing is reconciled Computer-produced output from the processing to manual control totals Now if we have a lot of transactions millions and millions of transaction We could look at the reasonableness, but if the information is reasonable We should basically process or add the information manually and compare it. Why not? It's worth doing the reconciliation making sure it was processed properly Also, we can compare the number of unit or transaction process to the number of units submitted make sure everything that was Submitted was actually processed Maybe we want to look at a sample of transaction of output Maybe we have a lot, but let's take a look at a sample of 100 transaction Let's take a look at 10 and compare those 10 transaction to the source document and make sure they are processed properly This is output if they are processed properly the output should be correct Maybe we can say well the process is working properly, but if we find two errors Then we might have an issue So at least we can catch it before this information is is used publicly or used across the company We can verify dates and times of the processing to identify any out of sequence processing We can also look at that to see what time the transaction is processed. What time should have been processed? Is it out of sequence? Also Accounting information system generally speaking information system They produce what's called the transaction logs and I spoke about transaction log in the prior session when I spoke about Processing control and transaction logs keep track of who wet one and how? Okay, usually also transaction logs are used When you print something You you send your name your ID the time what you are printing to the printer So sometime when the printer jam that I'm pretty sure you see this at work Everyone knows who jammed the printer because the the person the person's log was there But the transaction log is much much more important in the real world what I'm gonna do now I'm gonna switch and show you an accounting information system called QuickBooks and show you what would a transaction log looks like just so you understand the Appreciate the benefit of a transaction log. So let's go ahead and jump to QuickBooks So this is a quick book quick books class that I am teaching and basically I assigned companies to my students and they're supposed to Access access those companies. Basically. It's their company I'm their accountant and in the and they need to process transaction sales purchases so on and so forth So I'm not gonna look at any particular person. I'm gonna look at what I chose my company Mookie the bugle concierge. I am you know, I enroll myself as a student Now what I'm gonna show you now is how to review an access log and most accounting information system will have a log a transaction Log so I'm gonna click here on the gear and I'm gonna look at let's assume You know Farhat is my students. I'm the teacher or if I'm the manager Farhat is one of my employees I can go to their audit log and I would know exactly What Farhat did like for example here user Farhat as a student I know they changed their setting September 3rd at 4.09 I would know exactly what they did or let me take a look at, you know, Mansour Farhat what he did. I Can see at September 10th 1101 1101 p.m. Added an account called utilities Farhat to water and utility So I can see the history. What did Farhat did what time when so on and so forth So this is a transaction log. This is important This is an output because now the the transaction is finished now. I can see what's going on again This log could be output or processing, you know, you can argue both ways I like to think of it's an output because it happened after the fact You can only produce this after the transaction has been processed and you would see exactly what your accountant did for example and Any of my students here? I can go into their account and know exactly, you know Exactly what they did did they follow the transaction properly as Instructed by the course instruction or if they did not if they did it or not what time they did it so on and so forth This is the importance of a transaction log also talking about the printer Sometime the printer will have what's called spooling print file where the file is skewed But this is important to as an output control because sometimes the company might be Printing sensitive data. So before you can print this data, for example, you send something to the printer Maybe a sales report. Well, guess what that sales report gets skewed into the printer and But it doesn't print until you walk and add the print you walk to the printer and you input some sort of a code Or some sort of a password that trigger The output in other words, you don't want someone you don't want to click on the printer Maybe get busy the printer print the file and your coworkers or someone else sees see those files What you do is you walk to the printer and you input the file and believe it or not When I was in the real world in the real world means when I was working Actually one time and I was shocked when I work in at a CPA firm that I was able to see The earnings per one quarter for the partners. I was shocked I mean, I was printing a return and the papers were, you know the the one of the partners was printing the report and basically I Picked it up with my tax return. I went back. I was looking over my tax return I was like, what is this Excel graphs is doing in my tax return? And I saw exactly what each partner was doing. I immediately walked and I saw what you know Who is the big player and who's the small player who's still new in the business so on and so forth But it was unintentional, but I just I could not help it the graph looked like so It was a good graph actually because it shows you exactly the name of the people Versus what they were earning for that quarter. What's their Sales or the revenue for the quarter? So obviously I told the partner that look this is this was by mistake because obviously they were looking for it and it was part of my Paper, but if that if that firm had output control when the partner prints It will not print until the partner is standing there and they'll input their code print that report takes the report with them end of the story Well, those are basically the output controls as part of application controls What should you do now go to far hat lectures work MCQs look at additional resources that's gonna help you understand This application control whether you are an accounting student or a CPA candidate Invest in yourself invest in your career. Don't shortchange yourself far hat is on your side Whether you are a student or a CPA candidate. Good luck study hard and of course stay safe