In order to ensure the efficiency of the technology systems, it
is necessary to review the question of whether the established technologies
are actually necessary and whether they overlap with other processes
or entity levels or are merely redundant.
Considerable potential for savings combined with a more reliable
assessment are offered by upstream (preventative) technologies
and by automatic controls.
There is also a global assessment of:
• the extent to which the technologies makes an effective
contribution to the business process (control design and implementation)
• whether there are significant control weaknesses
• the impact of control weaknesses on the technology’s
effectiveness, the overall system and the corresponding assertions
in the accounts;
• whether the business process has any compensatory controls
to offset the impact of control weaknesses in the technology,
and whether there is a need for further testing of controls and
additional substantive testing procedures.
Walkthroughs
With walkthroughs, the following are systematically verified:
• understanding of flows and processing,
• the consistency and significance of existing documentation
and flow charts,
• the accuracy and completeness of the information regarding
the relevant technologies and
• the existence of relevant technologies in day-to-day
routine processing, semantic differential for each business