What practices protect data integrity in inventory management systems?

• A. Manual spreadsheets only
• B. No backups
• C. Audit trails, access controls, validation, backups
• D. Random number generation

Answer: (C)

Maintaining data integrity in inventory management means preventing errors from entering the system, detecting any changes, and being able to recover from problems. Audit trails capture every change—who made it, when, and what was changed—so discrepancies can be investigated and accountability enforced. Access controls ensure only authorized staff can view or modify inventory data, reducing the risk of accidental or deliberate tampering. Validation checks verify data at entry and during updates—for example, ensuring quantities are nonnegative, unit measures match, and item codes are valid—so bad data never taints stock records. Backups keep a copy of data in a separate location and can be used to restore the system to a known good state after hardware failure, corruption, or a security incident. Together, these practices protect the accuracy of stock counts, fulfillment accuracy, and financial reporting. Relying on manual spreadsheets alone increases error risk and lacks safeguards; having no backups risks data loss; random number generation doesn’t address data accuracy or accountability.