The RAISERROR statement is a Transact-SQL statement for generating user-defined errors. It has a similar function to the SIGNAL statement.
By itself, RAISERROR does not cause an exit from the procedure, but it can be combined with a RETURN statement or a test of the @@error global variable to control execution following a user-defined error.
If you set the ON_TSQL_ERROR database option to CONTINUE, RAISERROR no longer signals an execution-ending error. Instead, the procedure completes and stores the RAISERROR status code and message, and returns the most recent RAISERROR. If the procedure causing the RAISERROR was called from another procedure, RAISERROR returns after the outermost calling procedure terminates.
You lose intermediate RAISERROR statuses and codes when the procedure terminates. If, at return time, an error occurs along with RAISERROR, the error information is returned and you lose the RAISERROR information. The application can query intermediate RAISERROR statuses by examining @@error global variable at different execution points.