| Abstract: | 傳統的財務報表審計服務，其查核作業的執行時點主要是以會計期間為基準，每季、每半年或一年才針對企業財務揭露，進行事後的交易查核。然而，近年來企業普遍地應用網際網路和全球資訊網技術之後，在沒有任何第三者稽核的情況下，企業的財務資訊幾乎可選擇於任何時點在網路上公開揭露，再加上投資者藉由網路瀏覽器等工具蒐集或分析這些資訊的成本降低，更使得此類資訊被使用的機率大幅增加。由資訊效率的觀點來看，市場投資者使用這些未經查核的資訊，將可能導致因資訊信賴度低而產生的資訊不效率，故傳統期間性的審計服務，顯然亦即當即時性網路資訊環境逐漸形成時，不但已不能提昇資本市場網路時代的資訊品質，同時也會逐漸喪失審計專業一直所強調的審計品質和權威性，故為了因應此一即時性資訊揭露市場的來臨，審計專業該當尋求更符合即時性資訊環境的審計方法。
改善資訊效率的方法之一，即所謂連續性審計(Continuous Auditing)的觀念，其目的乃是希望擴充即時線上資訊系統診斷機能至外部審計服務，以達成「交易結束後，立即進行查核；財務報表發布後，立即出具審計意見報告」的目標。但此一課題目前仍屬新興階段，不論是理論或技術架構皆存在許多未盡之處。例如連續性審計是否在任何經濟環境下均較具效率？或是某些經濟條件必須符合時，才適合應用連續性審計方法？此等重要的經濟適用性問題，均無任何研究曾明確地交代。此外，如何有效率地整合各種資訊技術，來實地發展連續性審計技術，以對目前網路財務揭露系統進行連續性審計？而完整的一般化系統架構、技術指引與系統發展方法論又如何建立？這些問題，在相關的文獻中，均皆未能提出適切的答案。
本研究即針對上述各項議題分別提出解決方案，首先從資訊經濟學理論的角度，探討在連續性財務資訊揭露的環境下，連續性審計的必要性，並以較嚴謹的定義，來建立連續性審計的理論架構，並討論可能影響連續性審計效率性的各種經濟條件；確認連續性審計的重要性後，其次將整合應用審計專業知識、連續性審計觀念架構與相關的資訊技術，以發展出適用於連續性審計的一般化技術架構；最後則依照連續性審計一般化的技術架構，實地設計出一個應用物件技術的連續性審計雛型系統，以驗證連續性審計理論與技術架構的可行性。
Through years, regulation parties consistently emphasized the importance of timely accounting information in their formal statements. Despite those highlights from regulation parties, professional accountants can`t achieve timeliness due to the lack ofrealtime disclosure technology. However, in the past a few years, situation is changing dramatically. The combined innovative technology on production (such as the on-line transaction processing and the on-line analytical processing) and dissemination (such as the Internet distributed object technology and World- Wide-Web technology) of the real-time accounting information definitely made timeliness feasible. In fact, there is strong evidence to believe there would be more and more public companies posting their timely important financial or operating information on Internet in the near future. Although the increasing provision of timely accounting numbers on the web is expected to strengthen the quality of accounting information, behind the web-disclosure behavior, the information asymmetry problem still will bother both the reporting companies and information users since those web-releases are usually remained unaudited.
Recently, in AICPA and CICA`s joint report, they emphasized on the importance of continuous auditing as a soluetion to this emerging web-release problem. Unfortunately, besides their awakenings on this material, those official reports did not provide much insight on both continuous auditing theoretic and technical framework. For instance, what exactly is the economic definition and implication of continuous auditing? Would continuous auditing be the most efficient way to audit the real-time information? How to prove it? Also, technically, how to conduct this new approach successfully? Depending on what kind of information technology this approach could be best implemented?
From research design view, the above problems are certainly not appropriate to be answered through an empirical research approach since there are still no continuous auditing practice existing. Accordingly, the most emerging research now is to construct a complete continuous auditing theory and technical framework. This paper, based on the motivation to examine both the theoretic and technical framework of continuous auditing, is going to address the following issues. First, some formal modeling tools are adopted to analyze different auditing approaches to show why, from an economic view, continuous auditing would dominate others in different dimensions. Secondly, we derive a generic technical framework from the continuous auditing concepts to guide the implementation of technical issues. Finally, an object-oriented prototype system implemented by Java language is developed to support the proposed theoretic and generic technical framework. |
