Computer Assisted Auditing Techniques
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Computer Assisted Auditing Techniques (CAATs) are audit tests performed by or with software, rather than manually. CAATS are employed to audit electronic data that cannot be audited manually or as a substitute for manual tests to make the audit more efficient and/or effective. CAATS are specifically mentioned in the Statements on Audit Standards published by the AICPA.
[edit] Techniques
These techniques include, but are not limited to:
- Fraud testing (SAS 99)
- Random sampling (with physical verification)
- Curve data deviation
- Average or median user data input calculation and prediction
- Age analysis
- Gap analysis
- Duplicate analysis
- Data stratification
There are commercial companies that have developed Generalized Audit Software, where some of these techniques are available, and artificial intelligence algorithms, which are applied to data to assist in the human auditing.
