Control Over IT Needed to Pass an Audit

Posted by Data Magic on July 11th, 2016

Control over an organization’s information technology (IT) systems is a critical path need for companies to operate efficiently and remain competitive. Over the last decade, companies in the Dallas Metro area increased the use of technology support services from IT companies in Dallas.

There are significant advantages for those companies that work with IT companies in Dallas to provide IT support when compared to working with non-local companies. The advantages include faster response times, working in the same time zone, and being able to have in-person help on-site when needed.

Dallas IT Support

The main considerations for IT systems include staying up-to-date with the most current and efficient solutions, managing expenses, and security. There are many choices for IT companies in Dallas that provide IT support. Organizations looking for Dallas IT support need to identify their specific needs and then look for providers that support those needs. The IT support must be in alignment with the overall security issues that are part of the organization’s long-term strategic planning.

IT Audit

The best practices way to identify an organization’s IT needs, especially those needs that are unmet, is to conduct an IT audit. An IT audit determines the sufficiency of management controls over the IT infrastructure. This audit examines both internal IT infrastructure that is owned by the organization and external IT infrastructure used by the organized as part of its network and interface with the rest of the world. A company may perform an IT audit as a proactive tool to evaluate the IT systems.

The results of the IT audit show if the IT systems of the organization are deficient in security, if maintenance of data integrity meets industry standards, and if the IT systems are functioning efficiently in effective ways that meet or exceed the goals and objectives necessary.

IT Audit as part of a Financial Audit

The trend is to conduct an IT audit, which makes a careful evaluation of the IT systems, simultaneously with a financial audit that evaluates the sufficiency of accounting systems and verifies the information used for financial reports.

The combination of an IT audit with a financial audit is an integrated audit procedure, which has become standard. The reason for this, as noted by Accounting Web, is that management’s adequate control of IT, or lack thereof, has a direct impact on the reliability of the information used to prepare the financial statements. This is true regardless of the organization’s size.

Because so many of the accounting functions are now automated, if the IT systems are not robust enough to withstand a security breach or if an organization has extraordinary risk of a network failure that would cause a serious business interruption, these factors impact the reliability of the financial information.

Additionally, technical errors in poorly managed systems might cause misstatements in the raw data, which lead to financial reports that are seriously misstated. An example of this would be a company that relies on a digital bar scanning system to record inventory movements. If the bar scanner system is not operating properly, inventory levels could be misstated.

IT Controls

There are general controls that auditors look for, which include company policies, employee access, disaster recovery plans, IT governance, network configuration, logical controls, and physical controls. Moreover, there are application controls over data input and output for accounting systems necessary to prevent duplicate postings, mathematical errors, and prevent unauthorized access.