The Remote Audit

As internal audit management seeks to control costs, improve quality, and take full advantage of emerging business technology within their organization' the remote audit becomes increasingly sensible. The integrated audit of the future, with real-time evidence feeds and both remote and in loco components, will be very different from the current internal audit work and will eventually be also embraced by external auditors. During a remote audit, internal auditors would interact with different departments and functions of the firm and third parties over long distances using remote communication technology, such as web conferencing and remote access to information system clouds. This paper is designed to 1) synthesize information and literature found in areas from distance learning to operations management, and 2) present a framework for applying this technology to the remote audit. The literature includes items from remote audit, continuous audit, virtual organization theory, distance technology, and value proposition. Our focus is primarily on the technology that enables audit teams to work effectively and efficiently from a remote location