Computerised Environment

The auditor should ensure that the use of computers does not affect their primary responsibility of reporting on the accounts but the way in which the auditor carries out his substantive and compliance procedures to arrive, at his opinion will be considerably different. In auditing in computerized environments our firm ensures that;

1. The auditors are involved in computerized systems at a planning, development and implementation stages. Knowledge of the systems gained at these stages will enable the auditor to plan the audit with an understanding of the system.
2. Timing is more important in computerized environments than in manual environment because of the need of the auditor to be present when data and the files are available, more frequent visits to the client are usually required.
3. Recording methods may be different. Recent developments including; the use of portable laptops to aid in preparing audit working papers or coupling a client’s mainframe computer to a microcomputer in the auditor’s office enabling auditors to download data files onto their own personal computers.
4. The allocation of suitably skilled staff to the audit. Thus audit firms now use the computer audit department on some parts of the audit and allowing general audit staff to have some computer experience.
5. The extent to which computer assisted audit techniques can be used. These techniques often require considerable planning in advance.