Continuous auditing technologies and models: A discussion Source: computers & security 25(2006), pp Authors: S. Flowerday, A.W. Blundell, R. Von Solms Speaker: Cheng-Yee Lee

Introduction  Information Audit ‘‘ A systematic examination of information use, resources and flows, with a verification by reference to both people and existing documents ’’.

Introduction  Continuous auditing (CA) Current audit practices take too long to provide assurances To provide real time assurances, continuous auditing is desired ‘‘ a methodology that enables independent auditors to provide written assurance on a subject matter using a series of auditors ’ reports issued simultaneously with, or a short time after, the occurrence of events underlying the subject matter  This paper surveys 3 CA models, and introduce their concept.

CA models  Continuous auditing building automated auditing capability (Rezaee et al., 2002) Client/ Transaction system Data Mart Periodic test Format Transform Collect data and send

 Towards a paradigm for continuous auditing (Onions, 2003) CA models Client/ Transaction system One transaction keystroke level data examination Client/ Transaction system Long period test 1 2

CA models  Continuous audit: model development and implementation within a debt covenant domain (Woodroof and Searcy, 2001) Agent Ask for report Client’s systemAuditor’s system Collect data According contract Extract data if returned report is more than auditor’s need Report is generated on demand

Conclusion  Within real-time accounting systems, real-time assurances are not only desirable, but are possible.  Data exchange format is important, and XML technology is of great help to such issue.