（2004）Auditing in the e-commerce era.pdfVIP

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at /researchregister /0968-5227.htm Auditing in the e-commerce era Auditing in the e-commerce era Ning Zhao and David C. Yen Department of DSC and MIS, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA, and I-Chiu Chang Department of Information Management, National Chung Cheng University, 389 Chia Yi, Taiwan Keywords Auditing, Electronic data interchange, Communication technologies, Artificial intelligence Abstract Financial statements are not as important to investors as they once were, as technology has changed the way companies create value today. While these changes pose serious threats to the economic viability of auditing, they also create new opportunities for auditors to pursue. Both the American Institute of Certified of Public Accountants and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) Task Force on Assurance Services have identified continuous auditing as a service that should be offered. Continuous auditing is significantly different from an annual financial statement audit. A latest research report produced by the CICA defines a continuous audit as: “a methodology that enables independent auditors to provide written assurance on a subject matter using a series of auditors’ reports issued simultaneously with, or a short period of time after, the occurrence of events underlying the subject matter.” However, continuous auditing would present significant technical hurdles. These tec