The relationship an audit department has with the IT department is critical.
In many organizations, IT staff are reluctant to allow access to the production
data for fear of misinterpreting it and, more importantly, affecting the
system’s performance with respect to production and the running of critical
routines. Internal audit must be transparent in how it will use the information
and work with the IT group to ensure the sources are credible.
The benefits outweigh the challenges and an audit group can benefit being
an end user of a production system. This is intended to be a helpful option
(not replacement) to using external system tools and CAATs.