Essay on Auditing Firm PwC's Aura Embraces Automation for Faster, Smarter Audits

Introduction

The automation of audit has made auditing faster, smarter, and the errors have been reduced. PwC's Aura is the auditing firm that has embraced technology to capture data and integrate auditing activities (Lord, 2017). The firm acts as a single source of information and ensures that other auditing firms work under the same methodology. The firm carries audits to millions of companies around the world; the automation of auditing has improved the efficiency and accuracy of the company. Big data analysis tools help in auditing big companies with big data. Emerging technologies will enable companies to increase their profits.

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Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used by organizations to improve their insights and audit quality. Organizations are using machines, robots, and AI-powered systems to carry out tasks that ware traditionally done by people (Lord, 2017). More people are losing jobs as machines replace them because the companies want to save money and make more profits. The companies are saving labor costs and time spent training the employees, the new machines are capable of doing more work and more efficiently. The technology disruptions have affected many professionals whose work is being taken away by the robots living them with little work.

The enhanced technologies such as the AI-enhanced audit, Natural language generation, and processing and virtual reality are programmed in a manner where they can monitor activities at the company all the time and respond to situations (Lord, 2017). The technologies collect data from the companies, analyze and generate results; hence managers keep on being update on the performance of the companies. The decisions made at the company are influenced by the findings of the audit. Managers are able to detect errors such as fraud early and respond accordingly.

Trump wants to kill the PCAOB

The PCAOB is a public accounting oversight organization that oversees the audits of the public and insurers companies to ensure there is the credibility of the audits. Trump has been accused of planning to kill the PCAOB, where trumps say he has lost the trust of the credibility of the PCAOB (Oliver & Leary, 2020). Slack is being doubted, whether it's a credible source of information and its effectiveness in promoting communication in organizations. Slack replaced communication through emails in organizations. Information from slack is challenging to audit; hence there is a challenge in detecting fraud. PCAOB monitors auditing firms to check the credibility of the audits. Trump believes that the PCAOB is not credible to do the audits.

Biggest Alleged Startup Frauds of All Time

Some startup companies push their luck too far, and sometimes they fail even before starting making investors lose their funds. One of the companies which duped investors into their fraudulent and fictitious investment plan was Theranos. The company claimed that they had a technology that could help clinicians test the blood of patients using far less quantity of blood compared to normal hematological tests. The company CEO constantly denied the claims of exaggeration of the technology (Research Briefs, 2019). However, in September 2018, Theranos informed the investors of the plans to shut down the company. This teaches the entrepreneurs of the importance of sufficient research and applicability of the research data.

Other startup companies that turned fraudulent were "The Honest Company" that claimed to offer natural household goods such as toiletries and cleaners. The company was, however, accused of fraudulent labeling. The other company that was involved in startup fraud is LendingClub, which violated its business practices. Leplanche, who was the founder of the company, was involved in a sale of loans worth $22M to a single investor (Research Briefs, 2019). He was subsequently fined $ 200,000 and barred to engaging in any securities activity.

References

Lord, G. (2017). Confidence in the future; Human and machine collaboration in the audit. Pwc.co.uk. Retrieved 29 April 2020, from https://www.pwc.co.uk/audit-assurance/assets/pdf/confidence-in-the-future-human-machine-collaboration.pdf.

Oliver, B., & Leary, D. (2020). Trump wants to kill the PCAOB | Cloud Accounting Podcast. Cloud Accounting Podcast. Retrieved 29 April 2020, from https://www.cloudaccountingpodcast.com/160.

Research Briefs. (2019). 16 of the Biggest Alleged Startup Frauds of All Time - CB Insights Research. Retrieved 29 April 2020, from https://www.cbinsights.com/research/biggest-startup-frauds/