More than ever, technology is indispensable to business operations and recordkeeping, so people skilled in computer automation — IT auditors — have become an essential part of the financial audit team.

This book is a comprehensive guide to the IT audit discipline, and to the impact of abstraction on businesses. Developments including Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) mean that businesses are moving from a physical world to an abstracted digital world, increasing reliance on systems, their design, their implementation and on those that oversee and maintain these systems — often parties outside the businesses’ control. Though the implications of these shifts go far beyond IT auditing, this book focuses on what IT auditors need to know in this new environment, such as:

• How to understand abstracted services and appropriate internal business controls
• How to evaluate situations where physicality has been replaced by abstracted services
• How to understand and adapt to the impact of abstracted services on objectives, operations, decision-making, and Risk Management, including changing risk profiles and introducing new risks

In the wake of the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Evolution project, this book will be an essential resource for readers seeking CPA certification, as well as for business leaders and Risk Management professionals who need to understand the benefits and challenges of ever-increasing automation and its concurrent abstraction of physical reality.

Jerald M Savin is Founder, President, and CEO of Cambridge Technology Consulting Group, Inc., which specializes in Automated Business Software, including assessment, selection, implementation, and troubleshooting, Data Architecture, IT Auditing and Compliance, and Judicial Expert Witness Testimony. Jerry has taught at UCLA Extension for 30+ years, the UCR Graduate School of Business for ten years, and California State University Northridge for nine years' teaching courses in Information Systems, IT Auditing, and general IS classes.