I would say the summary.  Consider the paper analogue:  Employees punch
timecards, fill in sick leave and vacation forms, etc., from which the
information is eventually transcribed into a payroll register.  If the IRS came
to audit your payroll records, I think both you and they would rather that the
audit occur in a single payrol register rather than on thousands of individual
time cards and other records.  Thus, designating the payroll register as the
official record seems most logical and useful for everybody, even though the
cards and other forms might be kept for some period for verification purposes.
The trick is to make sure that the summary contains all the data points
necessary to make the IRS or other interested party confident that it is
complete and correct.

John Montana
Montana & Associates
29 Parsons Road
Landenberg PA 19350
610-255-1588

[log in to unmask] wrote:

> Hi,  I'm looking for some input on the following technical question asked
> of me:  Our payroll/labor distribution collection system is done
> electronically (stand alone system)  then transferred to various modules of
> our ERP system.  What should be considered the OFFICIAL record of these
> inputs? Is it the  actual data transactions collected or the transaction
> (somewhat summarized) kept within the ERP system.
>
> Thanks- Steve Petersen
>                   Records Admin
>                   Rockwell- Collins
>                   [log in to unmask]