Tradition
• Supreme Chamber of Control – 1919• roots in early XIX century • indispensable element of modern democratic
Poland
Complex Audit Procedure
• most audits are multi-location type• documents:
– Audit Plan
– Protocol (per location)
– Management letter (per location)
– Report
• quality requirements sometimes resulted in massive documents
Figure 1 General Scheme of the NIK Audit Procedure – documents produced and archived in MSWord format
Planningrisk assessment
analysis of external information and documents of NIK
Decisionof the
NIK Board
Audit Plandraft
Audit Procedures
Appeal Phase
Protocol
Appeal Phase
ManagementLetter
NIK Report
Audit Procedures
Appeal Phase
Protocol
Appeal Phase
ManagementLetter
MS Word
yes
yes yes
yes
no
no
no
no
no
Computerisation & Financial CAAT
• mid-90’s NIK underwent rapid computerisation • late 90’s NIK has been using CAATs• Auditor Assistant• other basic computing tools
More needed
• IT tool most extensively used – MSWord – not calibrated for the auditor needs – auditor has to play the role of a professional brochure-
maker
• problem with internal or bilateral documents• focus the attention on the content• simplest solution – calibration of the MSWord
– standardize the documents’ layouts,– easy retrieve analytical data with ‘styles’ and pre-made
macros
Is Word Processor a CAAT?
• can ‘hardly be a CAAT’ in financial audit • can be ‘much more a CAAT’ in the performance
or VFM audit
Desired Functions and Features
• replace an ‘empty page’ with a flexible electronic form
• free the auditor from the duty of text formatting • treat audit documents as data collections • free our data repositories from formatting code of
word processor
Flexible and Open Source
• no solution available on the market • something much more flexible then the product
prêt-a-porter • many difficulties in construction
– the risk that the new tool will deform our way of work
– the long and expensive process of outsourcing our individual project
• XML and Java
CAAT or jNIK: technology
• first version of CAAT‑or‑ jNIK – Summer 2003• technology of jNIK
– user interface is written in Java Swing – internal XML processing is based on DOM standard
being part of JAXP– tree with each branch connected to e-form (part of the
XML file)
• XML file can be: – full Audit Plan, next used as the Protocol– visualised in HTML, PDF format
CAAT or jNIK: key features
• e-form, not text editor • disciplines the audit teams to relate to all points in
the Audit Plan • means much more easier screening of the teams’
work • organizes and stores the data as XML documents
Hierarchy of Document
• dictionary of XML elements and limit the number of levels
• 3-level hierarchy of the Audit Plan:– auditee(s)– areas – subjects
• next levels of the ‘problem’ branches:– groups of findings – findings
Results
• user obtains a set of XML data: – Audit Plan – Protocol – elements to construct the Management Letter and the
Report
• much less disc space that MSWord files • light software• applied to the SCC audit procedure• ... but very flexible
Figure 6. General Scheme of the NIK Audit Procedure – use of jNIK and MSWord
Planningrisk assessment
analysis of external information and documents of NIK
Decisionof the
NIK Board
Audit Plandraft
Audit Procedures
Appeal Phase
Protocol
Appeal Phase
ManagementLetter
NIK Report
Audit Procedures
Appeal Phase
Protocol
Appeal Phase
ManagementLetter
Analytical DataMS Word
final version:xhtml / pdf
final version:xhtml / pdf
XML to Word
no
yes
no no
yes
yes
yes
no no
data reports
Word to XML
jNIK
findings
Conclusions
• fits into real needs of the organisation • cost-free • home-grown support team to fill gaps • supports open source environment • more money on IT training