SYNOPSIS Big Data will have increasingly important implications for accounting, even as new types of data become accessible. The video, audio, and textual information made available via Big Data can provide for improved managerial accounting, financial accounting, and financial reporting practices. In managerial accounting, Big Data will contribute to the development and evolution of effective management control systems and budgeting processes. In financial accounting, Big Data will improve the quality and relevance of accounting information, thereby enhancing transparency and stakeholder decision making. In reporting, Big Data can assist with the creation and refinement of accounting standards, helping to ensure that the accounting profession will continue to provide useful information as the dynamic, real-time, global economy evolves.

The purpose of this white paper is to discuss the evolution of auditing and the history of the traditional audit. This white paper is the second essay in the update to the 1999 CICA and AICPA Research Report on Continuous Auditing. This paper is published by the AICPA Assurance Services Executive Committee's Emerging Assurance Technologies Task Force with the intent of offering insight into the traditional audit approach, how it has evolved, and how it might continue to evolve into the future audit. This paper is also intended to provide an improved understanding of movements that have taken and are taking place relative to technology such that readers might better envision how accountants will continue to be the assurance providers of choice in the evolving real-time global economy. The subject matter outlined in this paper is of interest to AICPA members and those in the accounting profession as a whole. DISCLAIMER: This publication has not been approved, disapproved or otherwise acted upon by any senior technical committees of, and does not represent an official position of, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. It is distributed with the understanding that the contributing authors and editors, and the publisher, are not rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services in this publication. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

To address the changing business environment and increased shareholder interest, the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) recently issued an exposure draft updating its 1992 Internal Control-Integrated Framework. We review the updated Framework and discuss the comments we (as the Environmental Scanning Committee of the American Accounting Association's Information Systems Section) offered COSO regarding how to improve the Framework. In addition, we identify research opportunities for accounting information system scholars related to the new Framework.

No abstract