Since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and Auditing Standard No. 5 were issued, momentum continues to shift towards continuous monitoring or automation solutions. Such systems are often the focus of cost reduction efforts.When SOX first came out and transactional testing was significantly larger, PricewaterhouseCoopers directly identified such technology solutions as the key to cost reductions in an Internal Audit Advisory, noting, "Technology-enabled auditing, when deployed as part of a broader continuous auditing program, can make the audit process faster, cheaper, more efficient, and more effective... You can also improve assurance quality because of the new-found ability to rapidly audit 100 percent of a transaction universe as opposed to being restricted to data samples alone."Continuous auditing certainly makes a lot of sense at the transactional level. Since those early years of SOX, AS5 provided some relief to public companies by redirecting compliance efforts towards high-risk areas and higher-level controls. The change in AS5 allowed companies to reduce transactional testing while relying more on manual internal controls, but we continue to hear that continuous auditing and monitoring are the wave of the future. read more...

Most business owners never think their employees would steal from them, but that can be a wrong assumption...Fraud exists in virtually all sizes of organizations, and costs U.S. companies about 7 percent of gross revenues. That's equal to a loss of about $994 billion in 2008, according the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners "Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse." ...Most frauds that are occuring are known or suspected by someone. That someone may be an employee, a customer, a vendor or someone having observed an unsusral event. The real question is how to get those individuals to disclose their knowlege. The two best ways are a hotline number to a non-supervisory person, such as an auditor or in a small organization a high level clerical person. The "tip" can be by phone, e-mail or internal mail. The tipster can use his/her name or send the tip without a name. Rewards can be offered as a incentive... read more