Question
Another Question:
Assume that you are an audit senior in charge of planning the audit of a client that your firm has audited for the previous four years. During the audit planning meeting with the manager and partner in charge of the engagement, the partner in charge of the engagement, the partner noted that the client recently adopted an IT-based accounting system to replace its manual system. The manager and partner have limited experience with IT-based accounting systems and are relying on you to help them understand the audit implications of the concerns regarding automated accounting systems. Required: In previous years, the audit firm has relied heavily on substantive proceducres as a source of audit evidence for this client. Given that the client now has changed its accounting system, what are some of the factor that you should consider when deciding whether to move to a reliance strategy? Under what conditions should the audit firm consider engaging an IT specialist to assist in the evaluation? If the firm hires an IT specialist, what information should the auditors ask the specialist to provide? How are the five components of the client's internal control affected by the client's change to an IT-based accounting system?
Explanation / Answer
a. The auditor should understand the controls within the entity. Because the IT system is new and the manager and partner are not experienced with this new system, the few factors that they should consider would be the separation of duties/activities. They should also note who has access to the information on the system, if there as a password required, and who within the entity has access to the password. There are many risks involved so another factor to consider could be security cameras. Security cameras would verify the action and the activity performed on the system. Other factors to consider are the authorization of checks and who is allowed to sign them.
