Computers are very good at number crunching and doing lots of repetitive tasks quickly. For example computers can easily print off an entire set of electricity bills with little user intervention. Batch processing is the mode used for doing these simple tasks. For software to be considered as a batch process it must

• Have a large number of similar tasks or jobs
• Be run with no user intervention (other than to start it)
• Be able to run during out of office hours (or when there is light loads on the computers)

A batch process will have a list of jobs to do and will work its way through the jobs. It will do so sequentially; one after another. So calculating all employees pay slips would be done in a batch process. Batch processes tend to be run at night when there is little load on the servers. Although this is not necessary it is desirable. Batch processes tend to require large amounts of CPU time and tend to need a long time to complete. The more jobs within the batch process the more time it will require to complete.

A example batch process is for phone bills. A month (or quarters) useage is totaled up and a single bill is produced at the end of the month. Each customer would then get a personalised bill based on their monthly useage.