What aspects of their clients' accounting information systems must be understood by auditing professionals?

            The auditing professional are the specialist of the accounts fields who perform their duties in the organizations for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy of the accounting information. The internal and external auditing teams have several duties. However, their roles and duties in the organizations vary from each other because of the difference in purpose of auditing and control over the information of the organization. SAS 109 provides the complete guide to the auditing professional about the implementation of the best auditing system in the organizations.

        While implementing auditing system in an organization some important information should be in the minds of the auditing professional as the business activities of the organization, current information system of the organization and the network operations of the organization. Without having a clear understanding of the requirements and specifications of the organization (the client for the auditing professional) auditing team cannot provide the best services (Senft and Gallegos 2008).

        The auditing professional should have information regarding the general control, application control, and risk factors. In some organization, it department perform the duties of the application control. In such organization automate system of reconciliations are working. The professional auditors should have information about the application control, whether the application of such matters is under the control of the individual workers or the computer applications.

        The auditing professionals should also understand what type of general control system is working in the organization (the client organization). The general control covers all the procedures and strategies that have a direct or indirect link with the information system (Senft and Gallegos 2008). For instance the policies of the organization towards assisting the computer application for the proper functions of the application.

The general control system of the organization most of the time control the activities as:

Operations of the network and data center

Access security

Development of the system

Application system acquisition.

        IT system implemented in the organization can also draw an impact on the performance of the organization and its auditing process, therefore, the auditing professionals must have knowledge about the IT system implemented in the system. The segregation of the duties is also a concerning point for the auditing professionals.

        The auditors are also required to have information regarding the source used for the allocation of the information. Sometimes the wrong source used by the management and accounts team can cause the error in the information (Puncel 2007).

        For instance, sometimes monitoring the activities and getting estimation from the wrong or manipulated information management can affect the accuracy of the information. However, in the auditing process, auditing team can identify such errors and manipulation form rechecking the sources and background (origin from where the information is extracted) of the information.  Therefore the auditors must get complete information about the source and they should verify the sources to ensure the reliability of the information.

        Auditing professional also taken into consideration the architecture/ design of the information system in the organization as duties and authorities assigned to the employees towards recording accounting information (Senft and Gallegos 2008). Auditing professional should also have the knowledge of the ethical behavior and business practices of the organization.

        How the management deal with the employees and whether the organization has a formal code of conduct for the employees are the important information for the auditing professionals in order to accomplish the goals of all their auditing efforts? Thus by taking all these factors in the mind and collecting all the required information, the auditing professionals can perform their duties in an efficient manner and the purpose of the auditing can be achieved easily.

References of their clients' accounting information systems must be understood by auditing professionals

Puncel, Luis. 2007. Audit Procedures 2008. CCH. Accessed 10 28, 2018.

Senft, Sandra, and Frederick Gallegos. 2008. Information Technology Control and Audit. CRC Press. Accessed 10 28, 2018.