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CMA Intermediate · Corporate Accounting and Auditing · Application of Technology in Audit and Audit Trail

During the audit of a company, the auditor finds that the audit trail (edit log) feature was enabled at the application level of the accounting software but was not enabled at the database level for direct data changes. How should this be viewed for reporting on the audit trail requirement?

Logging only at application level while direct database changes go unrecorded means the audit trail did not operate for all transactions. The auditor should report this exception in the audit report on the audit trail requirement rather than accept partial logging as compliant.

  1. AIt is acceptable, because application-level logging alone always satisfies the requirement
  2. BIt indicates that the audit trail did not operate for all transactions, and the auditor should report the exceptionCorrect
  3. CIt is irrelevant, as database changes never affect books of account
  4. DIt requires the auditor to disable the application-level trail to keep the system consistent

Explanation

The audit trail is expected to capture changes to the books of account at every level where data can be altered. If direct database changes are not logged, some changes can occur without a record, so the feature did not operate for all transactions. The auditor reports this as an exception rather than treating partial logging as compliant.

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