The invention relates to header and trailer record validation for batch files. According to an embodiment of the present invention, a computer implemented system implements a Header/Trailer Validation Tool. The Header/Trailer Validation Tool may read a control file containing pertinent information of each file to be validated. Key information may be determined at run time and the Header/Trailer Validation Tool may process the files dynamically. An embodiment of the present invention may also process any number of files in a single execution—this is particularly useful because in some cases a set of files may be received from another application, but not all the files may be used at the same time.