Control automation to reduce costs of control

Abstract

Much compliance effort concerns adherence to contracts. Parties to a contract need to make sure the other party fulfills the contract. To this end they may require additional controls in the business process. Controls have costs. In this paper we argue that fully automated controls help to lower control costs, because (i) the can help prevent misstatements (compliance by design) or (ii) they increase the quality of audit evidence and thereby reduce the audit risk and additional audit fees. The line of reasoning is illustrated by a case study of the implementation of automated controls on the procurement process for public transport services for the elderly and disabled. The case study suggests open issues, which can be linked to concepts from Normative Multi Agent Systems. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.