General Consultant Discussion

Is DFDM to fix problem accounting records within the scope of services we should provide users? I am uncomfortable in some situations where a user wants to make an invoice appear a different way because a customer or vendor might otherwise be confused. Am I unwittingly assisting someone in covering up fraud? In most cases I'm sure it's just an innocent change. And we've all done them. It doesn't mean that I am comfortable making these changes and the fraud issue is always in the back f my mind.

We had a similar discussion yesterday but in the area of payroll. Ultimately, we can show them how the system operates but if we don't don't push the button, we're not pulling the trigger. Obviously there is still the matter of being responsible for loading the gun.

Fraud is a serious allegation... intentionally misrepresenting a material fact to someone's detriment... Is it material? If someone relies on the change will it be detrimental to them? Changing an invoice date because it was entered incorrectly and now the aging doesn't tie out isn't fraud... What specific changes would constitute fraud?

I'm in the business of consulting - not law or appearing in court due to a subpoena.

My 2 cents, is changing a record in DFDM always depends on what we are being asked, like a header record where the lines on an invoice is X though the import or data entry has the record at Y, or Dates. To change a balance on a record then I am with Wayne not sure which way to go and depends on the material aspect of it. I prefer to fix it with data entry for audit trails though we all know there are sometimes even that doesn't work.

Always better to have an audit trail and fix it through the software. There are times though, particularly with data corruption where DFDM makes sense. For example, and out of balance daily transaction register..... the options are: fixing the out of balance condition by modifying an existing record or adding one or more records, deleting the entire entry and entering the correct entry using general journal, creating a one sided or other correcting entry after posting the out of balance dtr. In most circumstances I usually opt for modifying an existing record or adding one or more records to the daily posting file... just correcting what it should be...it is simply accounting... they used to do this stuff in paper ledgers.