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See what the accounting and audit press have to say

Happily, we are now seeing the emergence of services that collect all the data, tag it for friendly searches focused on audit-related needs, and make it available in a convenient form. AuditAnalytics offers such a Web-based service and users can ask questions such as what is the average audit fee across all clients in my industry or what significant deficiencies are in my industry that I should be concerned about?

- From the AICPA's Corporate Finance Insider - "Is Your External Auditor a Liability to Your Company?"

SEC data is readily available yet time is still a scarce commodity. For example, suppose you wanted to identify all of the audit fees reported via SEC disclosures in the utility industry from January 2004 through today. As the finance professional, you would have to know what companies in the industry to investigate, spend the hours manually downloading SEC documents from the Web, check the listed audit fees, copy the actual text, and then organize the information for analysis. Although this can be done using the Internet sites, it is rather tedious. Many economy-minded internal auditors will ask, "Why should I pay for access to information I could get for free?" As with many decisions of this kind, the real issue is how much value this kind of information might add to the process of choosing an external auditor. Particularly in the present audit climate, making the right choice can be priceless.

- AuditSoftware.Net

Although the basic information provided by online services s useful for identifying audit issues, paying close attention to how the online service provider tags and organizes the data can make the difference between an insightful and haphazard review. In compiling the data, the provider has already read the document and determined the issues to which it pertains. For example, the Audit Analytics service, categorizes disclosures in a variety of ways. By searching company disclosures based on issue categories or key phrases, auditors can review significant deficiencies, company restatements, litigation, and material weaknesses, in each case filtering by company size, location, industry, or other criteria. Aligning the issues reported within the industry to the organization's current audit plan may identify gaps. Browsing the various issue categories can reveal areas that could be addressed better within the company or that are prone to external audit review.

- Internal Auditor magazine as published by the Institute of Internal Auditors

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