Intra/inter process continuous auditing (IIPCA), integrating CA within an enterprise system environment

Abstract

PurposeThe pressure is on organizations to go beyond automating their internal audit activities and develop and integrate internal auditing into business processes of the enterprise. This paper aims to propose a “full power” continuous auditing (CA) model with three key components: electronic audit evidence functions; intra‐process auditing; and inter‐process auditing.Design/methodology/approachThis paper follows a design science approach by identifying relevant problems from the current literature, defining the objectives of the study, designing and developing the “full power” CA model, and evaluating the model. The model supports business process‐centric auditing and enhances the business monitoring capacities of organizations enabling the fulfillment of increasingly stringent compliance requirements with internal policies as well as external regulations.FindingsThis work has attempted to fill the gap between the enterprise solutions offered by enterprise system providers and a structured approach to auditing within enterprise environments by proposing the IIPCA model which combines the automated controls inherent in the systems with continuous audits based on electronic audit evidence. The approach provides for auditing both within and between processes ensuring comprehensiveness of the audit process.Originality/valueThe paper makes a contribution by proposing a “full power” continuous auditing model on the principle of continuous monitoring and with predefined building block components; facilitating the integration of continuous auditing within business information processing in an enterprise using different building blocks; and giving practitioners insight on the adoption of the CA in the enterprise and how it will enhance their audit effectiveness, and audit efficiency.