1. Intelligent Process Automation in Audit
Abigail Zhang
Continuous Auditing & Reporting Lab
Rutgers Business School
43rd WCARS
11/03/18

2. Overview Motivation IPA in Audit The three frameworks
IPA Implementation in audit
“Auditor-in-the-loop” IPA ecosystem
Audit workflow driven by IPA
Ongoing and future research

3. Motivation IPA RPA Other Intelligent flexible scalable Objective:
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Intelligent Process Automation (IPA)
IPA
RPA
Other
AI/CC
Cannot process unstructured data
Cannot handle fuzzy and complex rules
Cannot process exceptions
Cannot adapt to changes
Intelligent
flexible
scalable
IPA expands RPA by AI, cognitive computing, and other technologies to make the process automation scalable, flexible, and intelligent.
Objective:
Establish a framework and prototype of implementing IPA in audit, and evaluate them.

4. Intelligent process automation
IPA in Audit
Intelligent process automation
Artificial intelligence
Machine learning
Computer vision
Virtual agent
NLP/
NLG
Others
RPA
Cognitive computing
Other technologies
Data analytics
Drones
Smart contracts
Blockchain
IoT
IPA is an ecosystem of technologies that brings automation to the next level.

5. The “Sense-Think-Act” loop of IPA
Unlike RPA, which can only execute pre-programed procedures, IPA can “sense,” “think” and “act.” The data and information “sensed” by …will be forwarded to the thinking part. In thinking, when the AI and cc are not able to deal with certain tasks, it will forward them to a human and learn from what the human does. Then the thinking part will give order to the acting part, where the RPA will … If necessary, the sensing part will again obtain data from what’s been executed from acting, closing the loop and starting the circle again.
Adapted from UiPath (2017)

6. Framework of Implementing IPA in Audit
1. Identify the task type: structured, semi-structured, or unstructured
2. Is the audit task automatable? And will it be automated?
3. If yes, then granulize the task into small steps
4. Choose the suitable automation tools for each step
5. Orchestrate automated audit steps (redesign if needed)
6. Prototyping and implementing

7. The “Auditor-in-the-Loop” IPA Ecosystem

8. The Audit Workflow Driven by IPA

9. Ongoing and Future Research
Ongoing research
RPA component of the IPA ecosystem
Implementations in audits
Impacts on audits
Future (not too far) research
AI+RPA in audits
Implementations
Impacts

10. “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
-Albert Einstein
Thank you!