Continuous Auditing and its Impact on the Quality of Key Qualitative Characteristics of Accounting Information

Abstract

This study aims to demonstrate the impact of implementing continuous auditing on the key qualitative characteristics of financial information, and the resulting increase in confidence regarding business reporting information, achieved by shifting from traditional financial statement auditing to continuous auditing. A number of findings were reached, most notably that continuous auditing plays a role in supporting and achieving the quality of "relevance" in electronically published financial reports. It does so by facilitating timely access to information and providing users with significant predictive value at the appropriate time. Furthermore, continuous auditing contributes to enhancing the reliability and credibility of these reports by fostering confidence in the real-time corporate disclosures made via the Internet, and ensuring the production of accurate, reliable, and trustworthy financial information. Accordingly, the study concluded with a set of recommendations, most notably: the need for public and private entities that publish their financial statements electronically to adopt a continuous auditing approach as the basis for auditing those statements; the necessity of mandating that audit firms and offices conduct continuous audits; and the need to qualify auditors for these tasks by organizing—and requiring attendance at—training courses to keep pace with significant technological developments in the modern business environment.