Batching & The Audit Control Number

The following description of batches and the audit control number are provided to aid the terminal operator in understanding and using the system.

A batch consists of a collection of documents of similar type. They may be invoices, purchase orders, journal entries, canceled cheques, manual cheques, or other 'like' documents. Each collection of documents is assembled into a group or batch. The entry of data to the system is taken from these batches. Prepare an adding machine tape of the total dollar value of the transactions contained within each batch or group. This total is used in the batch balancing process to verify the accuracy of the data entered and to provide assurance that further processing of the financial information can be undertaken.

You must provide an audit control number to enter data to the system. The format of this audit control number is YPPTTTSS or YYYYPPTTTSS for payroll related programs.

Y is the last digit of the fiscal year for the financial transactions. YYYY represents the fiscal year (ie., 2023).
PP is accounting period number (in Payroll use payroll period). The beginning of the customer's fiscal period is accounting period 01. Proceeding to the end of the accounting year, either period 12 or 13. If the customer's fiscal year began in April, accounting period 01 is April of that year, May, 02 and so on.
TTT is the batch type. Each customer establishes the characters which will be used to represent their batch types. Batch types are usually established to provide you with logical groupings of transactions that divide the data entry in a fashion suitable to office procedures, processing and retrieval.
SS is the sequence number of the specified batch type within the same accounting period (or Payroll period for Payroll). For example, the fifth batch of the same type in the same accounting period would be sequence number 05.

Note: You can input the sequence number or enter <Enter> and the system will assign the sequence number.

The Following Are Examples of Batch Codes

302INV09 or 202314TIM01

In the example 302INV09 the year is 2023. The accounting period is 02, indicating the second period within the customer's fiscal year. The batch type is INV, in this case depicting an invoice batch. The sequence number 09 means this is the ninth batch of invoices entered for the second accounting period.

In the example 202314TIM01 the year is 2023. 14 represents the 14th pay period in your payroll calendar. The batch type TIM represents a timesheet entry batch. The sequence number 01 means that this is the first batch entered in the 14th pay period.

Audit Control Entry (Finance)

Batch Control Entry (Payroll)

When a terminal operator selects a data entry module which affects the financial information stored within the system, they will be prompted for an audit control entry number.

Budgetary Accounting System

This screen asks for the entry of an audit or batch control number, the number of documents contained in the batch, and the total dollar value of the transactions in the batch.

Online Payroll System

The Online Payroll System also requests the entry of the number of hours in the batch. Zeros may be entered for the number of documents, the number of hours and the pre-list total amount. These figures MUST be provided and subsequently entered into the batch/audit control number using Batch Change found in the Batch Maintenance menu.

Entering a batch control number other than the current year and current month will cause one of the following messages to appear on the screen. These messages are listed with a description of their meaning and the appropriate data entry operator action.

Prior Year Transactions

This message appears if the fiscal year portion of the batch number is less than the fiscal year indicated in the Master Profile Record.

Click Save to continue entering.
Click Cancel to cancel entry of batch control header.

Future Year Transactions

This message will appear if the fiscal year portion of the batch number is greater than the fiscal year indicated in the Master Profile Record.

Click Save to continue entering.
Click Cancel to cancel entry of batch control header.

Prior Period Transactions

This message will appear if the accounting period portion of the batch number is less than the accounting period indicated in the Master Profile Record. This message will appear regardless of the fiscal year.

Click Save to continue entering.
Click Cancel to cancel entry of batch control header.

Future Period Transactions

This message will appear if the accounting period portion of the batch number is greater than the accounting period portion of the current fiscal period indicated in the Master Profile Record. This message appears regardless of the fiscal year.

Warning Not Current Period

This message is only displayed from the Payroll system. It is a warning message only and intended to advise you that you are doing data entry into a batch other than the one the payroll entry program expects. The payroll calendar is flagged as updated during the payroll update process, entry to any period other than the next sequential period number will produce the above warning message.

Invalid Pay Period (Payroll) Or Invalid Period (Finance)

This message is displayed if the pay period entered is not valid in the payroll calendar or the accounting period has not been entered in the Finance calendar.

Invalid Batch Type

This message is displayed if the batch type entered does not exist in the Batch Type database.

Batch Closed

The batch number entered is for a batch previously finalized/closed. The system clears the batch control number and requires you to enter a new batch control number.

Batch Control For This Item Exists

This message appears on the screen when the batch control number entered is one that already exists on the batch control file and the batch has not been finalized. This facilitates exiting from batches to do such things as add new vendors or, correct other pieces of information or, to do some other type of inquiry necessary before proceeding with data entry. The operator must click save to accept the batch or click Cancel to cancel it and return to the beginning of the batch control entry screen. If the operator enters <Enter> with no response, the system will issue an error message and await the entry save or cancel.

Note: Each time the batch is exited and re-entered, the system provides an offset clearing entry for the data entered during the particular batch entry session.

Batch In Use Accept/Override

This message indicates the batch control entry number entered is in use by the system. This can happen in one of two ways. The first is the batch number entered is one that is truly in use by another data entry operator. The system is warning that this batch is in use, and that you probably entered the wrong number. If this is the case enter 'A' (Abort) and the system will prompt for a new batch number to be entered.

The second reason for the display of this message is that the batch was in use at the time of a computer failure. In this case, the batch is left on the file with the 'in use' flag set. This probably means the clearing balance to the offset account has not been created by the batch program on exit from the data entry module. In this instance you will have to use one of the recovery functions to establish the offset journal entry in the batch.

NOTE: We recommend that you fix the batch total, end the use of this batch and start a new batch for the remaining entries.