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Very interesting and relevant discussion.
As an auditor, the knowledge you acquire always seems to be insufficient because very nature of the audit profession is to review various different systems / processes etc.
The check lists are there only to guide us as baseline to start with. These check list save lot of time and also transfer knowledge very structured manner. The business knowledge and business risk knowledge for considering what needs to be checked or audited is part of the audit planning, where auditors as part of the scoping exercise map the business processes and identify various applications to be reviewed. There are chances of errors and hence audit planning, scoping and checklists, audit programs do change as we progress conducting audits. However check lists have their own important and limited role in the process. The minimum we expect them to do is to cover testing of important controls. Check lists, however exhaustive they are, they cannot become end or final source of conducting the audits.
Auditor’s endeavor is to reduce the chances of errors in scoping, coverage and relevance etc. All these things put together makes audit a challenging profession.
The need to improve on skills and knowledge in audit profession is high and it is increasing due to convergence of technology and business processes.
Regards,
Krishna
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