What Is Forensic Engineering?

Audit forensics refers to the process by which audit institutions and auditors collect audit evidence around audit objectives. It is an important part of the entire audit implementation process, it is the basis for forming audit conclusions, and it is the basis for audit to determine the facts, make qualitative and deal with punishment.

Audit evidence

Right!

Audit forensics refers to

In a sense, the audit work is carried out around the audit evidence collection, through the collection, sorting, analysis, and evaluation of audit evidence, so as to draw objective and fair audit conclusions. Not fully effective

(I) The relevance of audit evidence is not high

The audit work is a combination of methods and practice under the guidance of a certain auditing theory, and the audit evidence collection method is the key to audit work. Looking at the overall audit work,

Whenever auditors start to collect evidence, they are always faced with the necessary choices, namely how to obtain evidence and what evidence to obtain. There are various methods of audit forensics, and each method has its specific purpose and scope of application. Therefore, when carrying out audit work and selecting audit methods,

Observation is one of the commonly used methods in the process of audit evidence collection.

In actual work, the auditor's inspection of written information is usually carried out through review and review. Here we mainly review review. Review means review and review by auditors

As the requirements for audit quality become higher and higher, higher requirements are also put forward for audit evidence collection. Therefore, it is more important to ensure the quality of audit evidence and improve the reliability, adequacy, relevance and legality of audit evidence.

Audit forensics Problems in current audit forensics

Generally speaking, the main problems are irregular audit evidence collection, blindness and randomness.

1. The audit and evidence collection procedures are not standardized and lack uniform standards. Audit evidence is the certification materials obtained by auditors to explain the truth of audit matters and form the basis of audit conclusions. Although the audit evidence standards make the principle that "the audit evidence collected by auditors must have objectivity, relevance, adequacy and legitimacy," what kind of evidence should be taken for audit items of different nature and how to obtain evidence, etc. No clear rules. Therefore, even on the evidence of the same issue, different auditors may collect different audit evidence. Many audit evidences are not systematically analyzed and decided before evidence collection. Only experience is used to obtain evidence blindly, resulting in insufficient and irrelevant evidence. Failure to systematically analyze and arrange evidence collection information after evidence collection, audit evidence is insufficient to support audit conclusions, and evidence Insufficient, increasing audit risks.

2. Audit evidence collection methods tend to be singular. Affected by habitual thinking, audit forensics has always been based on checking financial account books, paying attention to written evidence and ignoring physical evidence of environmental analysis. Focus on internal evidence and avoid external evidence.

The collection of environmental evidence mainly refers to the collection of facts about the internal control environment, accounting system, degree of control, various management conditions, and quality of management personnel of the audited unit. The standardized auditing procedures provide important links for obtaining environmental evidence, such as testing the internal control system of the audited unit, but auditors often fail to do this during the audit process, and some have done some Work, but did not record relevant compliance tests, audit investigations, and prepare audit work papers, which resulted in obvious lack of evidence in audit recommendations and audit evaluations. Compared with internal evidence, external evidence has a stronger proof force, but due to the objectively higher cost of obtaining external evidence, external evidence collection is still not enough in practice, resulting in insufficient audit evidence.

3. The content of audit evidence is not standardized. There is no standard scale to measure the adequacy and relevance of audit evidence, and the acquired audit evidence is insufficient and excessive. There are many, but the relevance is poor, and there is no connection with specific audit objectives and auditing matters. It has little to do with the main issues to be investigated, and even has collected a lot of irrelevant audit evidence. It also produces duplicate and contradictory materials. It is difficult, and audit costs are virtually wasted.

4. Irregular forms of evidence collection documents. Some evidence records only some data and no written explanation materials. Some of the certification materials that need to be obtained through methods such as analysis, recalculation, and verification by the auditors lack the necessary process records, no calculation basis or other necessary explanations; for important audit evidence, some lack of audit matters that have been confirmed by the audited unit The facts and qualitative links are only stamped on the scattered evidence collected, and there is no document signed and identified by the responsible person, which makes communication difficult during the audit exchange of opinions.

Countermeasures for improving the quality of audit evidence

The main reasons for the above-mentioned problems are the lack of professional operating guidelines, the inadequate quality of auditors, the inadequate implementation of the accountability system for auditors, and the limitations on audit evidence collection methods. The author believes that in order to improve the quality of audit evidence, the following aspects should be done well:

1. Create a sound auditing legal environment and comprehensively standardize audit evidence collection. Auditing rules are an important criterion for judging the quality of auditing. The auditing standard system establishes working standards for auditing. An important aspect of measuring the quality of audit evidence is to see how audit institutions perform their legal duties and abide by professional rules. The soundness and improvement of the auditing standards system will further standardize the behavior of auditors and provide standards and basis for controlling audit quality.

Audit institutions shall formulate relevant forensic work forms according to the needs in the process of audit forensics, standardize the format of audit forensics, and standardize the auditors evidence collection behavior, reduce human errors, and improve the quality of audit evidence.

2. Further clarify and implement the responsibilities for obtaining evidence. The audit responsibility system for audit project quality is an important guarantee for improving audit quality. The accountability method should be adopted to promote the implementation of the provisions of the audit law, audit standards, and audit project quality control measures. An accountability system should be implemented to enhance the quality awareness and responsibility awareness of auditors.

3. Establish a scientific audit evidence collection decision-making mechanism. Analyze and think before obtaining evidence. If you think about it, do it again. What kind of evidence should you solve? How to get evidence? What kind of evidence do you take? How many cards do you take? When to get evidence. First, the scope of audit evidence collection must be clarified, and audit evidence related to audit matters must be collected in a targeted manner. Second, we must clarify the transformation method of audit evidence. It is necessary to collect original data, relevant documents and physical evidence that can prove the auditing matters. The original evidence must be transformed into other forms of audit evidence that are easy to collect, which not only guarantees its proof power, but also reduces the workload of auditors and improves the efficiency of audit evidence collection.

4. Strengthen the training and discussion on audit forensics technology, improve the auditor's practice ability, and enhance the auditor's awareness of quality and responsibility. At present, it is necessary to increase the training of auditors in using modern auditing methods and information technology, improve auditors' ability to use modern auditing techniques and professional judgment, and use limited auditing resources to complete the audit and evidence collection work with high quality and quantity.