Title: A one-to-one model for audit trails construction in database design

Authors: Tian-Lih Koo; Ming-Hsien Yang; Hsin-Tsu Liu

Addresses: Department of Accounting, Shih Chien University, 70 Ta-Chih Street, Taipei, 104, Taiwan. ' Department of Information Management, Fu Jen Catholic University, 510 Zhongzheng Rd. Xinzhuang Dist., New Taipei City, Taiwan. ' Department of Accounting, Shih Chien University, 70 Ta-Chih Street, Taipei, 104, Taiwan

Abstract: The clear and complete audit trails of a transaction system are important to auditing, management and control. In the environment of manual operation, the data created during the transaction process are all written down on papers and account books; in other words, the audit trails are composed of a group of reference codes on the original documents. Hence, all the processing trails are visible and checkable. However, after the data processing environment has been changed from manual operation to computerised operation, the audit trails have become not only invisible due to the electronic data, but also ambiguous due to the special characteristics of database design principles. This paper found that the characteristics of database would be affected by 'control constructs' and their 'one to one' manipulated values of the data model, and then presents a OTO model. Finally, a simple simulated case is prepared for illustration of the OTO model.

Keywords: one-to-one models; audit trails; database design; database characteristics; E-R model; entity-relationship model; transaction systems; auditing; management; manual operations; data creation; transaction processes; account books; written transactions; reference codes; original documents; processing trails; visible trails; checkable trails; data processing; computerised operations; invisible trails; electronic data; ambiguous trails; special characteristics; control constructs; manipulated values; data models; business; systems research.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2013.050621

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2013 Vol.7 No.1, pp.61 - 80

Published online: 28 Nov 2013 *

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