The Present Situation And Development Direction Of Computer Aided Audit

In the 1999 audit of ICBC and China Construction Bank, computers played a very important role.

The financial audit summary system is used in this audit. According to the requirements of the audit project, the system has designed audit work papers, statements and audit reports, and has functions of input, storage, query, modification, printing and summary.

In this financial audit, the auditor applies the system to complete the work paper input, fill out the various reports, compile preliminary draft of audit reports, and collect data in a hierarchical manner.

In addition, the auditors also have a certain understanding of the computer operating system of the audited units, and have made an attempt to connect and read the electronic data with the audited units, and have made extensive use of word, Excel and other text and form processing software to assist in the preparation and printing of work papers and audit documents.

The application of the computer basically runs through the whole process of the financial audit. It can be said that the computer has become the auditor's "second stroke".

In this financial audit, computer aided auditing has greatly simplified auditors' calculation and copying work and improved their work efficiency.

More importantly, to enable the auditors to improve the level of computer applications and enhance the awareness of Computer Aided Auditing, computer aided audit has been greatly developed.

In recent years, the audit institutions at all levels have paid more attention to the development of computer aided audit, and have made many attempts in the actual audit work, and achieved good results.

Specifically, it mainly includes the following aspects: first, the use of auxiliary audit software in the large-scale auditing projects organized by the whole country, and the compilation of audit manuscripts, filling out various statements, summarizing audit data and data.

For example, in 1998, we used the "sky financial statement collection system" in the inventory audit of grain enterprises. In 1999, we used the "financial audit summary system" in the audit of ICBC and CCB.

Two, using the audit data interface software to read or copy the database directly, obtain the electronic data of the audited unit, do data collection, account or subject inquiry, sampling inspection, interest recomputation and so on.

Three, make a preliminary exploration of the computer operation system of the audited unit, understand its general business process and key points of internal control, and make certain judgement on the rationality of the system.

Four, the use of general software (mainly word, Excel, etc.) for processing text and data, including the preparation of audit documents, the preparation of relevant manuscripts, calculation and summary.

Five, establish the internal LAN of audit institutions, carry out audit data pmission, laws and regulations, and so on, so as to achieve information sharing and two-way communication between leaders and business departments and audit teams.

Because of the late start of computer aided audit and the influence of insufficient funds and shortage of talents, there are still many deficiencies in the development of Computer Aided Auditing in China at present. It mainly displays in the following aspects: first, the development of Computer Aided Auditing is at an initial stage, and the functions and advantages of the computer have not been brought into full play.

Auditors use computers to carry out supplementary auditing. At the present stage, most of the aggregate systems that are used in order to facilitate the aggregation of data, or the use of word processing and form processing procedures, largely regard computers as more powerful typewriters and calculators. In the aspect of testing and testing computer operating systems of audited units, and using computer to analyze and process data, higher level computer aided audit work is only a trial site of individual audit institutions or departments, and has not been promoted in a wide range.

Computer Aided Auditing is still at a stage of exploration.

Two, the development of auxiliary auditing software is lagging behind, which restricts the development of Computer Aided Auditing to a large extent.

From the current use of auxiliary audit software, there are still some shortcomings such as imperfect software function, unable to connect directly with the data of the audited unit, and easy to make mistakes.

There are many kinds of auxiliary audit softwares. The vast majority of auxiliary audit software can only meet the needs of a specific audit project or a certain type of audit. There is no general software that has relatively complete functions and can be widely applied to various types of auditing.

Moreover, the auxiliary audit software is basically funded by audit institutions or organized by personnel, and the scope of application is basically limited to audit institutions. It should be said that there has not been a real audit software industry and market. The quality of software has not been tested by the market, nor is it supported by capital and manpower and material resources of the market.

Three, the construction of computer hardware in audit institutions is backward, which is not suited to the development of Computer Aided Auditing.

With the rapid development of computer technology, hardware equipment is constantly upgrading.

However, due to the shortage of funds and other reasons, computer hardware construction is relatively backward, especially in the grass-roots audit institutions in terms of computer investment is not much, the per capita computer ownership is still very low, many are still out of the backward models, to the development of computer-aided audit has caused great obstacles.

Four, the audit staff training is not enough, a considerable part of the audit staff computer operation level is not high, has not yet established a computer aided audit can be skilled in the audit team.

Many audit institutions, whether in recruiting and hiring cadres or in daily business training, have not paid enough attention to the level of computer knowledge and application of auditors, and the support and development of computer aided auditing has not yet been institutionalized.

In recent years, audit institutions at all levels have gradually taken some measures, such as holding computer application knowledge examination, etc., so that the current computer operation level of auditors has been improved, but there is still a certain distance from computer assisted audits.

The shortage of computer talents is the most difficult bottleneck to overcome in the development of Computer Aided Auditing.

This year, the Audit Commission put forward the goal of "human, legal and technological" construction. It clearly defined the development of Computer Aided Auditing as the focus of the development of auditing in China. Computer Assisted Auditing is facing great opportunities and challenges.

How to develop computer aided auditing in China and make the audit undertaking go to a new level can be done in the following aspects: first, take effective measures to promote the development of computer aided audit software.

Auditing organs at all levels should establish a mechanism to support the development of computer aided auditing software, give active support from funds to personnel, and focus on training a group of auditors who have both audit experience and software development ability.

In addition, we should formulate a series of policies to support the development of audit software industry and audit software market, and gradually realize the marketization and industrialization of audit software.

Two, pay attention to the training of auditors' computer knowledge, and improve the computer application level and consciousness of auditors.

To develop an auditor who knows both computer operation and auditing business is the most important part of developing computer aided auditing.

Audit institutions at all levels should set up a sound computer training and assessment plan, train and train a group of auditors who can skillfully use computers to assist auditing.

On the other hand, auditors should establish and improve the awareness of Computer Aided Auditing, get rid of outdated concepts, actively learn computer knowledge, and apply them in auditing practice.

Three, accelerate the construction of computer hardware and computer usage environment of audit institutions.

Starting from the long-term development of auditing, audit institutions at all levels should pay enough attention to the construction of computer hardware, increase investment in computer equipment and systems, emphasize the construction of internal LAN and audit database of audit institutions, and promote the modernization of auditing.

Four, computer aided audit can be developed to off-site monitoring and real-time monitoring.

The auditing scope of audit institutions is very extensive, limited by the existing manpower and material resources of audit institutions, and the actual coverage of auditing is very small.

Moreover, the audited units are constantly developing and changing in their operation and operation. Many problems will happen in an instant, or they can not be remedied afterwards. It is obviously not enough to rely solely on the post audit and on-site audit methods of the audit institutions to supervise. It is an effective method or a development direction to use computers to carry out off-site and real-time monitoring.

The computer has the functions of immediate response, remote manipulation and automatic warning. It can set up the internal audit module in the computerized accounting system of the audited units through legislation or the formulation of departmental rules and regulations, establish a off-site and real-time monitoring system within the unit, connect with the computer system of the audit institution through networking technology, and establish the remote supervision and control between the audit institutions and the audited units.

This kind of off-site and real-time monitoring system needs advanced computer hardware and software support, and it can be realized by co construction of audit institutions, relevant departments, audited units and so on, but this should be an important direction for the development of Computer Aided Auditing and modern auditing.

Guangzhou Special Administrative Office of the Audit Commission