Many years ago when I was the CAE at Tosco Corporation, I got a personal invitation to join a Continuous Auditing Symposium led by Professor Miklos Vasarhelyi at Rutgers University[1]. I remember talking to Miklos and hearing that he had been holding the event for many years. It was more a small group discussion than a major conference, as he had been unable to persuade that many people to attend. Very few were practicing any form of continuous auditing.
Although I was very interested in the idea of continuous auditing or assurance, I couldn’t justify my time or the travel expense to attend when, as he admitted, the idea of continuous auditing or assurance hadn’t taken off. I found out later that there were less than a dozen people in attendance.
I was already practicing several continuous auditing/assurance techniques, and he wanted me to share those ideas at the conference. They included:
- Attending the monthly and quarterly meetings the CFO held to review and discuss the period’s financial results, and whether there were any accounting or financial reporting issues.
- Either I or one of my direct reports attended the monthly executive team meetings each business unit CEO held.
- Regular one-on-one meetings with the corporate CFO, business unit CFOs, CIO, General Counsel, and other top…
