In other words, no one person should have control of two or more of these responsibilities. The more negotiable the asset, the greater the need for proper segregation of duties - especially when dealing with cash, negotiable checks and inventories. In those instances where duties cannot be fully segregated, mitigating or compensating controls must be established. Mitigating or compensating controls are additional procedures designed to reduce the risk of errors or irregularities. For instance, if the record keeper also performs a reconciliation process a detailed review of the reconciliation could be performed and documented by a supervisor to provide additional control over the assignment of incompatible functions.
Segregation of duties is more difficult to achieve in a centralized, computerized environment.
Some special aspects of segregation of duties apply to IT functions themselves. There should be segregation between systems development and operations, operations and data control, and data base administration and system development.