Detective controls
Detective controls
Detective controls attempt to detect undesirable acts that have occurred. They provide evidence after-the-fact that a loss or error has occurred, but do not prevent them from occurring. Examples of detective controls are:
Examples of preventive controls are:
| Detective control | Control description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Regular supervisory review of account activity, reports, and reconciliations | Management compares information about current performance to budgets, forecasts, prior periods, or other benchmarks to measure the extent to which goals and objectives are being achieved and to identify unexpected results or unusual conditions that require follow-up. |
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| Physical Inventories | Departments with significant inventories should maintain inventory controls over the items. Inventory items received and issued should be recorded, so that a current “book” balance is always known | Periodically, a person who is independent of the inventory purchasing and inventory custody functions should physically count the inventory items. The counts should be compared to the “book” balances. Missing items should be investigated, resolved, and analyzed for possible control deficiencies. |
| Control self-assessment | Departments should examine and improve existing internal controls and/or implement new internal controls to mitigate risks associated with a process or function. | Departments are encouraged to utilize the internal controls checklists that can be located in the forms section of the Division of Finance website. The objective of the internal controls checklists is to provide campus community with a tool for evaluating their internal control structure and general compliance by business process. |