ICommander was developed by a CPA with several years of auditing experience and
its design reflects that background. All transaction entry and posting is
validated in all ways possible and a trail of all posting is maintained in
several different fashions. One way is hard-copy posting registers (which are
now mostly in electronic form due to the Automatic Archiving ability that has
been part of ICommander for some time).
The ICommander Control System governs what companies are setup for processing, what systems are used, and what type of security is needed for users to access each company and system and the individual programs within. Linux/Unix systems further allow controlling company and user access using cross matching of operating system usernames, directory permissions, and locations for company data files.
Users may be restricted to a particular company or system(s) or both and may be setup to use limited menus that provide, for instance, only inquiry and order processing options for sales personnel. Encrypted authorization codes may be required for particular companies or systems and even individual programs may be setup to require a password.
Logging of user activity may range anywhere from just tracking logon and logoff to tracking all company and system access, reports printed, and, if desired tracking every program a user runs. All significant messages are logged both in a continuing log file and in the form of automatic print screens to a file so that all information needed to evaluate exactly what happened when a problem occured is quickly available. The automatic print screens are also accumulated into a separate continuing log that may be retrieved for review when needed.
User access to the operating system from ICommander may be completely restricted or allowed only from ICommander. User access to Management Utilities may also be restricted as needed.
ICommander runs using the ICOBOL Runtime System which, like ICommander, has a long history of solid performance. The ICOBOL Runtime provides many diagnostic and problem solving utilities that can be very complex to use. ICommander has brought all of these into simple General or Management Utilities Menus that are easily accessed from any application system menu (only users authorized for Management Utilities). Execution of any of the complex ICOBOL utilities involves ICommander interactively creating an executable script to perform the applicable function. That script and the results of execution are logged in a special directory so all usage and results have a full trail.
ICommander has an immense number of reports available in each application system. Many of these exist solely to benefit either outside auditors or to provide ongoing internal monitoring. Additionally, in 2003, a powerful new tool that we call Free-Form Data Extraction (FFDE) was introduced. The FFDE programs present all fields in all data files in a simple pick and choose format with extensive options for limiting the records to be selected, how to sort them, what order to report on them, and in what form. This is an amazing auditing and monitoring tool in addition to being a very flexible ad hoc reporting tool for general use.
Requests for all invoices over $10,000 to all vendors that were coded to a Repair and Maintenance G/L Account can be output as a report, a web page, a tab-delimited file for spreadsheet import, or sent to your screen where it can be viewed in just a few seconds. The FFDE programs are COBOL programs working under ICommander's control. This avoids bringing in less capable and potentially dangerous third party tools to provide this capability. Our auditing experience has found cases where such third party tools were totally outside of the controls of the accounting system and users thought it was neat that they could access accounting information directly instead of going through the accounting department. Some could even change information in the files without any trail.
A very recent addition to ICommander extends the ability to monitor all changes to master files. This has always been in place for P/R Employee Master Files but is now in place for all master files. All additions and deletions are tracked plus any changes to any field in a record. This log is available for inquiry by general users on the same menu from which the master file maintenance program is accessed. ICommander System Control has multiple displays and reports across all systems and files for use by those charged with monitoring suspicious or erroneous changes.
ICommander Data Files use a Indexed Sequential Access Method file structure that
is unique to ICOBOL. It is mentioned under security and internal control
because this makes it almost impossible for someone to extract usable
information outside of ICommander. We have seen systems that use ASCII files or
an easily accessible database where almost any sophisticated user on a network
can pull out sensitive accounting information at will.