Question 1 (20 marks/20 minutes)

Why do we need information systems? Information systems are implementations of models that we devise to represent real-world phenomena. Assuming that we have a good representation, in the table below briefly describe the three ways     that information systems are useful

For each of the three (3) ways listed in the table, below, briefly explain why information systems are useful..

Your explanation of why each way information systems are useful is worth the marks indicated.  (20 marks)

Section B (30 marks)

All the questions in this section relate to your major project during the semester.

Question 1      (20 marks/20 minutes)

The following is an article from Sydney Morning Herald in 2019. Please read the article and then answer the four (4) questions relating to the fraud affecting National Australia

Bank.

NSW Police arrest company director in

NAB fraud scandal investigation

Lucy Cormack,Nick McKenzieandRichard Baker

Updated March 1, 2019 — 2.18pm first published at 10.01am

The director of a company at the centre of an alleged $40 million corporate fraud             scandal involving National Australia Bank has been arrested and charged with more than 50 bribery and corruption offences.

Helen Rosamond, 43, is the owner and director of Human Group, an events and human resources company that has held lucrative contracts with NAB going back 12 years and worth almost $120 million.

Police will allege Ms Rosamond paid multiple extravagant bribes between 2013 and 2017 to an executive at the bank in order for the executive to approve bloated invoices.

Such bribes allegedly included a four-night trip for 13 people from Melbourne to Sydney costing more than $76,000, a one-month trip to the US for eight people which cost          $485,000, multiple trips to the Emirates resort at Wolgan Valley, prepaid credit cards,    private helicopter transfers and a $46,000 boat.

On Friday morning, Ms Rosamond was arrested by members of Strike Force Napthali at her harbourside home and taken to Kings Cross police station.

Shortly after 4pm she appeared via audio-visual link at Central Local Court, where she was granted bail by Magistrate , subject to a number of strict conditions, including      surrendering her passport, reporting to police daily and posting a $200,000 surety.

He said the financial gains allegedly made by Ms Rosamond were "mostly to facilitate a lifestyle" for herself and her family, with "boats, holidays," and "houses."

She is the first to be charged after an extensive 12-month investigation by the state's financial crimes squad into an alleged kickbacks scandal that ran out of the office of  recently departed NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn.

The massive scale of the alleged fraud was described on Friday by acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith as "something we haven't seen before".

Ms Rosamond has been charged with 56 counts of bribing an agent and two counts of      obtaining benefit by deception, related to the allegedly corrupt provision of over-inflated invoices for services to NAB between 2013 and 2017.

At the centre of the police investigation is the relationship between Ms Rosamond and    Mr Thorburn's former chief of staff, Rosemary Rogers. The investigation was triggered by a whistle-blower referral within NAB last year.

Information gleaned from the report was referred to the financial crimes squad in February last year, prompting the formation of Strike Force Napthali.

Within two months, Napthali investigators descended on the North Sydney office of Human Group, as well as other properties in Milsons Point and Potts Point. Police    executed 20 search warrants at multiple properties, seizing "a warehouse" worth of documents and electronic storage devices.

Forensic accountants from police and NAB have spent thousands of hours over 12 months examining the document haul since.

The alleged scam, which was mentioned at the banking royal commission, involved          Human Group inflating invoices for its services to NAB to cover large commissions and to fund extravagant overseas holidays taken by Ms Rogers and her family.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Smith said those involved with the alleged fraud had received substantial benefit.

"The commissions were paid to ensure certain contracts would remain viable with     [NAB]," he said, adding that the financial institution was also "a victim" and had been working with police.

"Obviously that was to secure those contracts and then those contracts were overpaid what would be an expected amount," acting Assistant Commissioner Smith said.

Ms Rogers has not been arrested or charged. She held the position of chief-of-staff for nine years, including under former chief executive Cameron Clyne, before her               resignation in December 2017.

Last month, Supreme Courts in NSW and Victoria slapped freezing orders over Ms           Rogers' $6.2 million property portfolio, three of her bank accounts and a $1 million NAB bank cheque following a proceeds of crime application by the NSW Crime Commission   last year.

Mr Thorburn, who quit as chief executive last month following criticism from banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne, is not suspected of wrongdoing.

Questions:

(a)        From the information provided in the article, explain how the fraud actually worked. (4 marks)

(b)         Discuss what the fundamental control problem was with National

Australia Bank. (6 marks)

(c)        Suggest and describe two controls that National Australia Bank could use to uncover and avoid dealing with fraudulent suppliers in future. (6 marks)

(d)        For each suggested control in (c) above, indicate whether it is preventive, detective, and/or corrective in nature.                                     (4 marks)

Answer Section B, Question 1 (Questions a, b, c, and d) here:

Question 2      (10 marks/15 minutes)

Based on the following small extract from Polis Grocers Inc., fill in the missing activities in the table of Entities and Activities presented below.

(10 marks, 1 mark per correct activity)

Section C (50 marks)

Question 1      (12 marks/15 minutes)

With  regard  to  the  Inventory  process  control  goals  of  effectiveness  of  operations, efficiency of operations, and resource security:

(a)        Give two (2) example controls for each of the three process control goals. (6 marks)

(b)    For each of the three process control goals, select one example control from your answer to (a).  Explain how the control supports the production planning process, and the risks to the production process if such a control was not in place.

(6 marks – 2 marks for each explanation of how the production planning process is supported and the risks to the production   process if the control was not in place)

Answer Section C, Question 1(a) and Question 1(b) here:

Question 2      (18 marks/25 minutes)

Thinking about your MYOB assignment, evaluate MYOB’s Billing/Debtors/Cash System module in terms of each aspect listed in the following table. In your      response, include an appropriate example to support your evaluation. This      question continues, over.

(6 marks for each aspect, i.e., one mark per appropriate evaluation point up to 4 marks for each aspect, and 2 marks for each relevant example supporting the evaluation points)

Question 3      (10 marks/10 minutes)

Following is a list of eight generic control goals (A-H), followed by eight descriptions of either process failures (i.e., control goals not met) or instances of successful control     plans (i.e., plans that helped to achieve controls goals).

List the numbers 1 through 8 in the table below. Each number represents one of the described situations on the page below.  In the table, next to each number, place the capital letter of the control goal that best matches the situation described.

Hint: Some letters may be used more than once in each situation. Conversely, some letters may not be used at all.

goals:

A.   Ensure effectiveness of operations

B.   Ensure efficient employment of resources

C.   Ensure security of resources

D.   Ensure input validity

E.   Ensure input completeness

F.   Ensure input accuracy

G.   Ensure update completeness

H.   Ensure update accuracy

Situations:

1.   Instead of preparing deposit slips by hand, Kaley Company has them generated by the computer. The company does so to speed up the   deposit of cash (speedy deposit being an objective at Kaley).

2.   In a typical cash receipt process, one of the earliest processes is to              endorse each customer’s check with the legend, for example, “for deposit only to Cost and Effect Company.”

3.   Levers Corporation recorded as sales some shipments of disk drives       between their warehouses. These disks drives had not been ordered by anyone and were still the property of Levers.

4.   Diffusion Co. prepares customer sales order on a multipart form, one copy of which is sent to its building department, where it is placed in a                 temporary file pending shipping notification. Each morning, a billing clerk  reviews the file of open sales orders and investigates with the shipping      department any missing shipping notices for orders entered 48 hours (or   more) earlier.

5.   An accounts payable clerk at C&C Company enters vendor invoices into     the computer. When the invoices for the particular day were entered, the computer noted that vendor invoice 12345 appeared twice. The computer rejected the second entry (i.e., the duplicate, the invoice with the same number).

6.   In entering the invoices mentioned in situation 5, the data for the         payment terms was missing from invoice 12349 and therefore was not keyed into the computer.

7.   Referring to situation 4, once a shipping notice is received in the billing department, the first step in preparing the invoice to send to the           customer is to compare the unit prices shown on the sales order with a standard price list kept in the billing department.

8.   At Falcon Company, the accounts receivable master data are updated at  the end of each day from payment data contained on the cash receipts     event data store. At the completion of the update run, the difference        between total dollar value of accounts receivable before and after the      update run is compared to the total dollars of payments being processed. (10 marks)