Large hard copy files are stored in audit supplemental files that are retained for an appropriate period (generally in the the audit departments I have worked in for three years). The large electronic files are stored on CD or disk and kept in the workpaper files. (We now use electronic workpapers making the storage easier) I require my staff to record information about the universe in the workpapers (for example the number of records, footings, file layout) and also describe the exact sampling methodology used. Ideally, the staff will use ACL for this.
If I need to review the original universe I can either retreive the hard copy or the electronic copy. Hope this helps Cheri Jones Associate Director University of Louisville [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> "Kaplan, Jim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 12/20/02 9:30:14 AM >>> I recently received the following question from an AuditNet user. I thought the group might have appropriate responses. I am looking for guidelines or procedures for electronic data / files that are used for an audit, but not specifically documented in hard copy for the workpapers. For example, let's say you extract from a financial database contract payments into a database or spreadsheet and it is fairly large. Then you take a sample from this to use for audit tests. Not a question about documentation of how you do the sampling and the testing & results. However, how do you provide documentation on the audit universe data used for this testing when you may not want to or need to print out a hard copy of a lot of data, maybe several hundred pages? Obviously you can save an electronic copy of large files like this on your hard disk, server's hard disks, CDs, etc. However, how does the supervisor reviewing your work get at this large electronic data for audit review and validation purposes? That is, to validate your did everything correctly and accurately?
