Continuous assurance for the now economy

Key Points

• The 365/24/7 digital world we live in means information is now being provided in real time to a wide range of users
• A new Institute thought leadership paper titled “Continuous Assurance for the Now Economy" addresses this reality
• The paper considers what assurance methodologies could and should be applied to this information and how to best match internal and external audit practices with IT systems to achieve timely and accurate results for stakeholders.

The IT revolution of the late 1980s early 1990s paved the way for information to be available upon demand. Over the years the demand by the users of information has grown stronger. As a result businesses, shareholders and sophisticated market analysts are demanding and are now receiving data in real-time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The key question of what assurance could, and should, be provided over this stream of real-time data needs to be addressed.

In response to this need the Institute has published a thought leadership paper, Continuous Assurance for the Now Economy (PDF), to promote discussion on continuous assurance as a concept. Written by leading academics Prof Miklos Vasarhelyi, Assoc Prof Michael Alles and Ms Katie Williams, the paper analyses the trends in the now economy and explores how continuous assurance can better match internal and external auditing practices with the IT systems to provide stakeholders with more timely and accurate results.

It recommends six steps for implementation:

• Establish priority areas
• Identify monitoring and continuous audit rules
• Determine the process’s frequency
• Configure continuous audit parameters
• Follow up
• Communicate results.
  

Article last updated 24 October 2011