Through a Strategic-Systems Lens(DOC 28页)

Foreword
by William R. Kinney, Jr.

As the twentieth century comes to a close, information technology has brought dramatic changes to business processes, to business organization, and even to auditing. These changes require major reconsideration of what we know about financial-statement audit technology. This monograph presents the thinking of two leading practitioners and two leading scholars on the foundations of auditing technology for the twenty-first century.

With changes in information technology, the inherent reliability of information systems for routine transactions processing is substantially increased, controls over transactions are increasingly embedded in software, and extensive data on nonfinancial dimensions of business performance are economical for audit use. But because information technology and deregulation have lowered barriers to entry in many industries, a company can lose viability quickly, making financial statements less reliable predictors of the future. Therefore, analysis of business viability is an important determinant of the value of audited financial statements.