Information Systems Control And Audit By Ron Weber 12.pdf
Mina Delahoussaye
Nowadays, as international trade with cross-border logistics increases, the administrative burden of regulatory authorities has been dramatically raised. In order to reduce repetitive and redundant supervisory controls and promote automatic administration procedures, electronic data interchange (EDI)1 and other forms of information sharing are introduced and implemented. Compliance monitoring ensures data quality for information exchange and audit purpose. However, failure to be compliant with various regulations is still a general phenomenon globally among stakeholders in supply chains, leading to more problems such as delay of goods delivery, missing inventory, and security issues. To address these problems, traditional physical auditing methods are widely used but turned out to be time-consuming and costly, especially when multiple stakeholders are involved. Since there is limited empirical research on compliance monitoring for regulatory supervision in international supply chains, we propose a compliance monitoring framework that can be applied with data sharing and analytics. The framework implementation is validated by an extensive case study on customs supervision in the Netherlands using process mining techniques. Practically, both public and private sectors will benefit from our descriptive and prescriptive analytics for audit purposes. Theoretically, our control strategies developed at the operational level facilitates mitigation of risks at root causes.
The author mentions inspection reports early in the semester when discussing the CPA profession quality control and accounting firm peer reviews. The author reviews the PCAOB's description of the inspection process with students before assigning Homework Handout #3. If instructors have not shared this information with their students, then they can use the above description as an appropriate introduction.
A significant body of academic research and opinion exists regarding the costs and benefits of SOX compliance, with significant differences in conclusions.[18] This is due in part to the difficulty of isolating the impact of SOX from other variables affecting the stock market and corporate earnings.[19][20] Section 404 of the act, which requires management and the external auditor to report on the adequacy of a company's internal control on financial reporting, is often singled out for analysis.
Section 302 of the Act mandates a set of internal procedures designed to ensure accurate financial disclosure. The signing officers must certify that they are "responsible for establishing and maintaining internal controls" and "have designed such internal controls to ensure that material information relating to the company and its consolidated subsidiaries is made known to such officers by others within those entities, particularly during the period in which the periodic reports are being prepared". 15 U.S.C. 7241(a)(4). The officers must "have evaluated the effectiveness of the company's internal controls as of a date within 90 days prior to the report" and "have presented in the report their conclusions about the effectiveness of their internal controls based on their evaluation as of that date". Id..
External auditors are required to issue an opinion on whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects by management. This is in addition to the financial statement opinion regarding the accuracy of the financial statements. The requirement to issue a third opinion regarding management's assessment was removed in 2007.
The most contentious aspect of SOX is Section 404, which requires management and the external auditor to report on the adequacy of the company's internal control on financial reporting (ICFR). This is the most costly aspect of the legislation for companies to implement, as documenting and testing important financial manual and automated controls requires enormous effort.[46]
The 2007 FEI study and research by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) also indicate SOX has improved investor confidence in financial reporting, a primary objective of the legislation. The IIA study also indicated improvements in board, audit committee, and senior management engagement in financial reporting and improvements in financial controls.[76][77]
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