Continuous Assured In Control

1
Continuous Assured In Control

• peeking ahead in a tagged-data era
• by
• J.P.J. (Hans) Verkruijsse PhD, RE, RA

2
XBRL

• What is it?
• Just a language.
• Will it change economic lifestyle?
• From distribution to stakeholders dialogue.
• From one-size fits all to whatever you need.
• Something new?
• Definitely for management.
• Definitely for financial auditors.
• Also for IT auditors.
• Should we focus on XBRL stand alone?
• It depends

3
XBRL what will it bring us

• Three new concepts
• Continuous reporting.
• Continuous monitoring.
• Continuous auditing.
• One new product
• Assurance by default.

4
Doing business with tagged data

• All transactions electronically.
• Business process organization.
• Tone at the top being in control.
• Clear understanding of internal control.
• Independent auditor connected.

5
Doing business with tagged data

• Information system prerequisites
• Availability of reliable data
• Unambiguous format.
• Information Technology Controls.
• Different sort of data.
• Software support
• Sophisticated software.
• Pattern recognition.
• Dynamic standards.
• Organizational support
• Knowledge management.
• Organizational controls.

6
Conceptual continuous monitoring process
PRODUCTION PROCESS
PRODUCT
?
?
?
?
Variance analysis
7
Auditing process pre-tagged data era

• Well-defined point in time.
• Well-defined audit object.
• Reliance on internal control.
• Well-defined auditors report.

8
Conceptual continuous auditing process
PRODUCTION PROCESS
PRODUCT
?
?
?
?
Variance analysis
IT General Controls
9
Closing remarks

• Continuous in control is possible
• Assurance by default is possible.
• New audit research areas
• Feasibility of assurance by default concept
• Consequences of disappearance of
• view-concept
• materiality-concept
• Data mining and learning protocols
• Dynamic standards concept
• Independence of the independent auditor.

10
Questions?
No matter how complex things are, basically
everything is simple
Einstein