AUDIT SOFTWARE

1
AUDIT SOFTWARE

• Chapter 16

2
Generalized Audit Software

• Off-the-shelf software that provides a means to
  gain access to and manipulate data maintained on
  computer storage media.
• Motivations for generalized audit software
  development
• The set of problems caused by the diversity of
  computerized information processing environments
  that auditors might confront.

3
Functional Capabilities of Generalized Audit
Software

• File access
• File reorganization
• Selection
• Statistical
• Arithmetic
• Stratification and frequency analysis
• File creation and updating
• Reporting

4
Audit tasks that can be accomplished using
generalized audit software

• Examine the quality of data
• Examine the quality of system processes
• Examine the existence of the entities the data
  purports to represent
• Undertake analytical review

5
Functional limitations of generalized audit
software

• Generalized audit software permits auditors to
  undertake only ex post auditing and not
  concurrent auditing
• Generalized audit software has only limited
  capabilities for verifying processing logic
• It is difficult for auditors to determine the
  application systems propensity for error using
  generalized audit software

6
The phases should be managed

• Feasibility analysis and planning
• Design
• Coding testing
• Operation, evaluation and documentation

7
Utility Software

• Software that performs fairly specific functions
  that are needed frequently, often by a large
  number of users, during the operation of computer
  systems.

8
Auditors can use utility software to

• Facilitate assessment of security and integrity.
• Facilitate gaining an understanding of an
  application system
• Assess data quality.
• Assess program quality.
• Facilitate program development
• Facilitate assessing operational efficiency.

9
Expert Systems

• Programs that encapsulate the knowledge that
  human experts have about a particular domain and
  possess capabilities to reproduce this knowledge
  when presented with a particular problem.

10
Neural Network Software

• It is used primarily for pattern recognition,
  learning, and classification purposes.
• The network learns by adjusting internal weights
  among its components until it can predict the
  output based on the input pattern.

11
Specialized audit software

• Software written in a procedure-oriented or
  problem-oriented language to fulfill a specific
  set of audit tasks.
• 3 ways to developed audit software
• Auditors can take total responsibility for
  developing and implementing the software
  themselves.