I am always looking for new ways that auditors are integrating the Internet into their work environment. If you have ways that you are using the Internet for auditing I encourage you to share them here for the benefit of other auditors that may be looking for ideas.

Auditors Sharing Knowledge (ASK) for Progress helps us all!

Regards,

Jim Kaplan
AuditNet.org

This might apply more directly to IT audit, but since that's what I do I'm just more informed about it.

Anyway, one of the first things I look at to familiarize myself with an audit area is to find out what software and applications they use, then look up that software on the Internet to see what the company says it can do. OK there's a potential test -- does the software do what it says it can do.

Then I look for other web sites that gripe and complain about the software, which gives me insight into operational risk and security threats the software may expose the audit area to. This provides me with additional potential tests, provided the risks are real and applicable.

I'm often going to CERT and SANS to find out what the latest problems are and evaluate whether those new issues relate to my audit area -- not just the software, but the operations and processes that the audit area performs. There are numerous papers that have been written for various SANS GIAC certifications, and these also provide a valuable resource -- and sometimes an audit program and test plan to boot!

There's more, but I don't want this to be so long that folks don't read it.

Rick Fowler

Rick

Thanks for your feedback. I have always maintained that integrating the Internet into audit is limited only by auditors imaginations. You have demonstrated an innovative way of using the Internet as an IT audit tool.

Regards,

Jim Kaplan

In addition to what rbfowler cited, FAQs are another good source of information on potential risks.

Internet has presented itself as Help Available on 24X7X365 basis. While on work one may face a situation where a quick reference is needed. That is where internet is a good help. For instance a quick look at website of The IIA may provide just what you look for!

Regards
Prashant Kapadia

These are great uses of the Internet. Can anyone provide examples of leveraging the Internet for auditing that are thinking outside the box?

Examples might include:

Benchmarking
Training
Best practices

What about improving the efficiency of internal audits?

Put on your thinking caps and provide practical examples.

If you can come up with something new and innovative I will send an e-copy of The Auditor's Guide to Internet Resources.

Jim Kaplan
AuditNet.org

I've pulled audit reports from government and university web sites to train staff on report writing. Using these reports as well as department info from these same websites, we've been able to identify strengths and weaknesses in the reports that my teams have used to improve our own processes. They've learned to better extrapolate the linkage between the target audience (audit committee) and the report's contents by using these real world examples. Now if we could only find a few reports from competitors in our industry!

Hi,
first of all I am new in this forum.

Now I am studying auditing and I want to suggest a way to integrate Internet into Auditing. In IT Auditing area, there is the COA(Continuous Online Auditing). With the help of Internet (of course there are security issues to concern) an auditor can perform audit remotely and more frequently. It is working allready and the cost benefits are good.

Hello everyone,

My experience of integrating the Internet into Auditing (as well as other areas) is as follows:

We established an Accountancy Firm in 2002 which since the last five years has grown into a medium size practice with a strength of 40+ personnel. One issue which we continuously faced was of keeping our manpower updated & abreast with the latest developments as well as with providing them with the tools and knowledge which would help them execute their responsibilities with excellence in all facets of their work.

We did arrange monthly training workshops wherein, the senior most management would train the mid level management and then the mid level management would hold training sessions for the junior level personnel. However, we continuously felt that our personnel needed a one window facility from where they should be able to access most (if not all) of the tools that they require in their day to day tasks.

The internet, as we observed, had a lot of information, but most of it is scattered and someone who is not familiar with the skill of online searching gets easily lost under mounds and mounds of irrelevant information.

Hence, we started our own online Resource Center, tailored to meet the specific needs of our personnel. Tools including guidelines, checklists, presentations, etc were either uploaded (where we got author's permission) or their links were provided in a categorized manner facilitating our personnel to access required information quickly and easily.

In doing so, inspiration was taken from Jim Kaplan's AuditNet as well as Protiviti Consulting's online resources among others. Jim's article '

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' also helped alot.

Since ours was an open forum, we observed that soon people from other parts of the world were also accessing and benefiting from the resources gathered at the Resource Center. I received email requests to add specific new areas to cater to their requirements as well, which I did as much as I could. Even our client's personnel are using it for their benefit.

The AAB Resource Center is accessible at

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Regards

Ahson Tariq
Director Consulting

A A BAIG & CO.
Chartered Accountants

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