EUROSAI. Magazine N18 - 2012

> 23 < EUROSAI ACTIVITIES EUROPEAN ORGANISATION OF SUPREME AUDIT INSTITUTIONS www.eurosai.org No. 18 - 2012 related to the main topics with each presentation followed by a discussion. The participants delivered 21 presentations during the two and a half days of the Seminar. The first two sessionsweredevoted to theprocurement, implementation and operation of the AMS for managing and evaluating the audits in theory and in practice. The third part was focused on use of computer assisted audit tools and techniques. The contributors represented a wide range of professionals— managers responsible for implementation of systems, administrators, developers and auditors as the end users of the AMS. The participants learned from presentations focused on particular audit management systems used by different SAIs mainly that: •  To achieve an integrated environment sufficient technical infrastructure is necessary. •  Technologies which have not been tried and tested and solutions with functionalities which do not comply with users requirements are not recommended. •  The relationship/proportion between user oriented functionalities, maintenance and, user acceptance and costs has to be balanced. •  The due implementation of the AMS increases the audit effectiveness and strengthen the audit management. •  The use of AMS simplifies administration of roles and rights and makes it flexible. •  The proper use, sharing and managing information eliminates time consuming procedures not providing any added value and contributes to timeliness and correctness of audit reports. •  Home-made tools based on standard products (e.g. MS SharePoint) tailored toparticular SAI’sneeds contributes to cost—savings, reduces dependence towards external companies, offers a full development platform. • T o tag information with metadata facilitate searching, extracting and retrieving documents and document sets. •  The social intranet has already become the tool for sharing knowledge and makes them available. During the third panel session participants were familiarized with: •  Possibilities of CaseWare working papers used for auditing of financial statements. •  Methods for collecting the data in electronic form by using CAATs. •  Implementation of the IDEA for gathering the evidence in audit work including practical examples. •  Functionalities of SW tool used for statistical data analysis in performance auditing. All the presentations and other seminar papers are available on the website of the Supreme Audit Office: http://www.nku.cz/en/mezinarodni/konference- seminare/seminar-IT 2012 /downloads-id 6112 / The seminar was organised with a financial support of the EUROSAI. The Supreme Audit Office applied for a financial contribution. The application was approved at the XXXIX Meeting of the Governing Board held in Ankara. The total expenses spent on the seminar (covering the meeting room and technical equipment rental, services provided during the seminar, working lunches etc.) were approximately 14 400 € . The contribution granted from the 2012 EUROSAI budget of approximately 5 200 € (roughly 1 / 3 of total expenses) covered expenses related to renting conference rooms and technical equipment. The seminar was very well rated from both professional and organizational views, based on results of evaluation questionnaires which were completed by participants and contributors on the last day of the seminar. Additionally, on the occasion of drafting this contribution we asked some of the participants to make their comments upon the Seminar. n The seminar was organised with a financial support of the EUROSAI. The Supreme Audit Office applied for a financial contribution. n