Internal control and continuous auditing: technology’s role in preventing financial fraud

1Introduction

Internal control ensures reliable financial reporting, asset protection and compliance; traditional periodic, sample-based audits often find discrepancies months later.

2Discussion

Continuous auditing checks every transaction against control rules in real time, flagging duplicates, unusual round amounts, out-of-hours spending and limit breaches.

Segregation of duties remains the cornerstone; software enforces it through roles and multi-step approval flows.

3Conclusion

Simply knowing that monitoring is continuous markedly reduces misconduct, so continuous auditing deters as well as detects.