"The Evolution of Audit in the wake of the Pandemic". This article talks about the newest trends
since Covid changed all our lives in many ways. One trend due to covid, is that people are working
from home. While this was required for some time in many places, it seems to have a started a
trend. Now that people are safer to go back to "real life", people find it more convenient to work
from home, especially with the rise in gas prices over the last year. This means that new technology
has been developed to make working from home possible. One challenge this trend presents is that
auditors will need to continue learning about new technologies to keep up with the latest
developments in this trend. The article mentions that this could be a challenge. The article also talks
about how a lot of companies are using a cloud-based data extraction technology. It seems to me
that this would rely too heavily on being able to upload that information. If information failed to
upload then this could cause many problems. It is also my opinion that certain things will get
overlooked when working from home. An auditor could be an expert on the new technology, but if
they never step foot inside the business itself, they may not be able to access risk as well. They may
not be able to determine, with certainty, what internal controls are in place and whether they are
sufficient.
In this article a financial crisis has occurred that has allowed the number of auditing firms to fall
immensely. This fall led to a decrease in the cost of auditing services due to competition between
auditors. This is bad for an auditing firm because it can lead to a fall in audit service quality. This
auditing failure came from the fall in audit fees. The audit could have been avoided if the firm took
charge immediately to make sure quality was keeping up to standards. Keeping quality up to
standards would have allowed for the company to keep their fees at their current price. This article
confirms my opinion on the current climate in auditing because many things can happen at any time
that can cause something within your firm to change which can result in an outcome that may be
good or bad for the firm.
According to Albrecht, the most pressing trends in Auditing are the widespread issues of fraud. In
the article “Current Trends in Fraud and its Detection” they explore the causes of fraud and the
fraud triangle. In addition, Albrecht, breaks the fraud triangle down into 9 element of the perfect
storm conditions that are conducive to carryout fraud, good economy, moral decay, misplaced
incentives, unrealistic expectations, large debt, selective interpretation, behaviour, greed, and
education. SOX and other regulations have been issued by the government in response to multiple
outbreaks of large fraud cases. The big question asked was, are these regulations working.
According to Albrecht, they do. Regulations put forth by govt. bodies are effective in reducing
financial fraud. Auditors are encouraged to perform a “Fraud Audit” instead of a “GAAS Audit” in a
case of high-risk clients. This is a stronger and bigger process that takes 50 times longer and cost 70
times more that the GAAS Audit. In a Fraud Auditors work to uncover fraud rather than a
reasonable assurance and will come through a lot more accounts with a fine tooth.
Albrecht, W. Steve; Albrecht, Chad; Albrecht, ConanC. Information Security Journal: A Global
Perspective. Jan2008, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p2-12. 11p. 1 Diagram, 3 Charts. DOI:
10.1080/19393550801934331. , Database: International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference
Center
The Evolution of Audit in the Wake of the Pandemic (isaca.org)
Low-cost trends in audit fees and their impact on service quality: Multi-Search (snhu.edu)
