| Abstract [eng] |
The Internet of Things is gaining in importance and role in business. It is projected that by 2025. devices connected to the Internet of Things will exceed $ 75 billion. The Internet of Things is evolving rapidly, exponentially increasing the amount of data available to organizations and auditors. In the literature, we can see a number of articles describing the possibilities of the Internet of Things in terms of security and assurance, but only a few articles discuss how to implement this and apply it in practice to audit procedures. Therefore, this dissertation examines the impact of the application of the Internet of Things on the collection of audit evidence for financial statements. Theoretical analysis has shown that the main features of the Internet of Things are distribution, computability, large amounts of devices and data, heterogeneity, dynamism, mobility, and versatility of services. The main risk factors for the successful application of the Internet of Things and its integration into software have been identified: ethical risk, security and privacy risk, and technical risk. The main benefits of the Internet of Things in a business context are the provision and analysis of information, continuous monitoring, time savings and reduced business costs. In addition to the benefits of the Internet of Things, it highlights the key shortcomings and challenges that businesses face in deploying and deploying the Internet of Things in their business or processes: data security and privacy, usage and compatibility issues, and cyber-attacks. It is revealed that the Internet of Things is capable of performing data processing, visualization and analysis, transmission, calculation and various data analytics, which would contribute to a more efficient and detailed implementation of audit procedures. The functionality of the Internet of Things will modernize and replace traditional methods of collecting audit procedures in the future. The Internet of Things can provide a broader and more comprehensive analysis of sources for audit data collection, including not only internal and external sources, but also sensors, sensors, and publicly available information. The paper proposed a conceptual model for the integration of the Internet of Things into the audit evidence gathering phase, including 5 audit evidence gathering procedures and data sources. A qualitative semi-structured interview was conducted, during which two samples were interviewed - 5 persons from the audit company (auditors) and 10 persons from the audit clients (business organizations for which the audit is mandatory). The results of the research revealed that business organizations have already started to apply and implement the Internet of Things in their activities, and employees of audit companies are introduced to the theory and strengthened in the field of competence. The qualitative study identified the key factors driving the use of the Internet of Things in gathering audit evidence for financial statements: the ability to test larger samples, substantiated and relevant audit evidence, greater likelihood of identifying potential risks, eliminating human error, reducing time spent gathering audit evidence, collection would become a more automated process, the audit profession would become more attractive, higher revenues would be generated, and the overall quality of audits would increase. The study identified the main barriers to the use of the Internet of Things in gathering audit evidence for financial statements: lack of auditors and individuals (knowledge and skills), outdated processes, data security and privacy, system incompatibilities (audit firms and audit clients), additional costs (expenses) due to the installation and adaptation of IoT systems, the lack of IoT devices with the required specification. The analysis of the results of the study also revealed the main general and specific risks. General risks - technological risk; privacy risk; cyber risk; data vulnerability risks (data protection); data reliability Specific risks - legislation (auditing standards); interpretative analysis of the data is not available. All research participants and experts mentioned that the application of the Internet of Things has a high or medium perspective in the Lithuanian market. The results of the interviews revealed that the application of the Internet of Things is an inevitable process for both business organizations and audit firms to remain competitive. |
