Improvements Needed in General Automated Data Processing Controls at the National Finance Center

Gao ID: AFMD-85-38 July 12, 1985

GAO reviewed the adequacy of selected general automatic data processing (ADP) controls at the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Finance Center (NFC).

GAO found that: (1) NFC did not have a formal disaster recovery and backup processing plan to ensure continued operations of its financial and personnel systems; (2) computer program documentation for the payroll/personnel billings and collections, and miscellaneous payments systems was not current or complete, which hindered system maintenance; (3) NFC programmers did most of the testing on their own program changes; and (4) some NFC personnel had unrestricted access to both data files containing payroll, financial, personnel, and other sensitive information and the programs used to perform the necessary functions of paying employees and collecting for services. GAO found that stronger ADP controls are essential at NFC because of the large volume of personnel and financial transactions processed annually and because of statutory requirements of the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act of 1982.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: John F. Simonette Team: General Accounting Office: Accounting and Financial Management Division Phone: (202) 275-9490


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