Every business wants reliable and effective technology to complete the business auditing process in today’s date. An auditing team also prefers trustable and advanced level auditing systems and technologies to reduce manual efforts and risk factors. To reduce the risk of asset loss and ensure the financial statements are reliable, accurate, and appropriate, auditors must check and analyse that the business has effective internal controls on IT audit finance. Financial management and reporting areas have been made efficiently easier in recent years due to the prevalence of technology in the internal control process. Now the implementation of advanced technologies has become an indispensable part of a reliable audit.
Importance Advancement and Changes in Technologies
Internally, technological advancement helps auditors use a software program to store, analyse, evaluate, and manipulate client data. This software allows the engagement team to have a complete understanding and central control of each financial transaction, tracking, reporting, and reviewing data. Expanded technologies and software allow auditors to reduce manual efforts and time and calculate appropriate financial results. Thus, implementing technologies in business has been proving to be a powerful information tool in improving the audit process.
Enhanced Efficiency
According to recent reports, every organisation has been spending and investing around $3-5 billion annually on technology. The full effect of technology on the future of auditing is yet to be significantly determined. But, among other things, technological advancement is expected to benefit and facilitate audit fieldwork by integrating and automating time-consuming manual and rote works. For instance, businesses can install computer systems with integrated auditing tools to automatically transfer and compile data. Drones are also used to observe physical inventories, which helps auditors save manual effort, time, and money.
Improved Testing
Implementation of technology in accounting makes it easier to audit and analyze large amounts of a company’s financial data and information & helps auditors examine 100% of a company’s transactions instead of evaluating only the sample. With the help of automated systems, sophisticated tools enable auditors to perform advanced data analytics to regain insight into its operations. Data analytics also help auditors better track and analyze their clients’ trends and threats against industry or geographic data sets; it leads to better assessments throughout the audit process. It helps auditors work on scrutinizing complex and high-risk areas requiring increased judgment without taking much time. The technology could eventually enable auditors to offer a greater level of assurance than today’s level of reasonable assurance. Technological advancements in the auditing process are also considered an effective and modern monitoring model; it helps manage client relations and enables auditors to show accurate business results and assurance to the clients by keeping proper financial records.
Enhancing Staff Efficiency
Increasing automation, enhanced data analytics activities, and artificial intelligence have also led firms to give the right and effective training to their employees so that businesses can increase their productivity and financial performance. Auditors can effectively reduce the time spent on unnecessary events and tasks. Implementing or hiring high-level technologies gives competing and dedicated results to businesses. For instance, – Google, Apple, Facebook, etc., have led their businesses towards high-level success because all their employees are highly trained and skilled to use automated auditing reports systems.
Beyond Financial Reporting
Rapid improvement in audit technology has raised a critical question: can auditors make their assurance services into areas other than financial reporting? Technological advancements and rapid changes in auditing technologies have given proper authorization to auditors to make proper investment decisions, analysis of financial statements including CSR practices, Non-GAAP financial measures, data analytics, cybersecurity practices, NWC changes, and liquidity risk, etc.
Conclusion
The aforementioned points highlight that auditors use sophisticated and comprehensive tools, first and foremost, to promote the interests of investors, stakeholders, businesses by improving audit quality. Implementing new and advanced technologies for businesses to accept technological advancements and improving the skills and abilities of trained auditors to observe business transactions and apply professionalism skepticism. New technologies like data analytics, cybersecurity, financial advancements, etc., will directly-indirectly help businesses to measure financial performance and challenges and deliver the right information to people who show interest in it.