A critical part of an auditor’s toolkit is the ability to validate the completeness and integrity of a production system, as well as validate specific elements of ancillary systems which feed production data. Data and related file sets within an application system are critical and can provide businesses filtered information, such as profit and growth trending, highlight exceptions, and report results and performance tracking. Internal audit can also use production data (and is strongly urged to do so by many audit authorities and best practices) to assist in continuous auditing, substantive testing and even when undertaking
forensic work, which scrutinizes the whole data population to rule out fraud or irregular practices.
In most businesses,
there is a heavy reliance on automation and
systems to drive business processes and both
management and financial reporting. As a result,
the auditor needs to be able to not only validate
the production data but, in many cases, ensure the
automated processes are working as designed.