1. Audit working papers in
Electronic Environment
– effective usage and
maintenance
CA Roopa Kamath N

2. Aim
Working papers Management – traditionally
Technology breakthrough – redefining
audit trail
‘Shared drive chaos’
Electronic working paper management –
small and medium practitioners perspective
Way forward
Professional avenues

3. Working papers – traditionally
important reference points
for the entire audit
lifecycle,
a check-list-type-philosophy
Myth - working papers only
apply to the fieldwork
phase of the audit cycle.
 Bulky and deteriorates
with lapse of time

4. Common issues
People oriented
 Pen and paper based
standards for exactly
what must be included in
working papers or how
they are prepared are
loosely defined, resulting
in inconsistent practices
and quality issues among
audit departments.

5. Technology - Breakthrough
Better Analysis with the assistance of tools
like spreadsheets, open office, etc
Faster and vast coverage
Relieves from the routine work
Better presentation and unlimited storage

6. Electronic working paper – is it that simple?

7. Shared-drive ‘chaos’
 organize and store audit
project files on network
storage or email servers
 Over time, file management
becomes unruly, inefficient and
costly.
Prone to version control
errors. Select, share
and/or update a wrong or
outdated version of audit
report.

8. Electronic working paper – is it that simple?
Different methods of preparing
working papers and reporting
status.
inconsistent processes and
project workflows that are
difficult to track and control.
The result, is inconsistency in the
quality of the underlying audit
work;
variation in the look and feel of
working papers documentation;
 unpredictable productivity;
inconsistent client experiences;

9. Electronic Working paper management
Acceptance to change
Training the personnel on the
systems and application
software's
Standardise Folder structure
Where, when, what and how to
store
Define a file naming conventions
Eg : Name of client_Nature of
report_etc

10. Electronic Working paper management
Use Version control technique
Effective usage of technology
Calculations, Charts, Pivots, Graphs, Sorting,
filters, Formatting.

11. Digital working paper management
Define and prepare working paper
preparation manuals,
What to record and how to record
 What is the type of application used
Data capturing mechanism

12. Electronic Working paper Management
 Define accessibility and security
guidelines
Who can access what kind of data
Encrypting confidential data
Data protection and confidentiality
Disabling third party emailing options
Usage of IBM Lotus notes, Outlook.
 Restricted internet access.
 Define communication channel
CC and bcc .

13. Maintaining
Regular back ups and storage
Storing in pdf and embedded formats
Encrypting and compressing data
Indexing and fragmenting data
Maintain an issue query log
Move with the technology updates

14. Professional gateway
 Understanding and analysing
trends better and faster -
Consultation
 Allows to concentrate on the
core area of business.
In house user specific design
based on industry and clients
Go Green initiative – Less
paper to paper less office
 Process/work driven task force
from people driven environment

15. Way forward – related areas of
professional expertise
 Automating few routine audit process.
Electronic data is throughout,
BCP and DRP technique
Cloud based technique.
Attaining ISO for working papers
Carbon credits
 Forensic and Fraud investigation

16. EmailEmail ::
roopanrk@gmail.comroopanrk@gmail.com