Auditing Information Technology Requirements Available to Purchase

In the current climate of accelerating IT development and mounting concern over its effectiveness, internal auditors are increasingly required to safeguard the interests of the organisation by ensuring that new systems match company objectives. The aim of this article is to assist internal auditors and all those involved in IT developments to establish a common basis of understanding; it demonstrates how to adapt traditional financial control and appraisal techniques to the audit of IT developments. In particular, the article introduces a method of measuring all system characteristics that are difficult to quantify and,despite their key importance, are often defined in ambiguous terms.