Význam IT kontrol pro statutární audit

Over the last few decades, organizations have become increasingly dependent on information technology for the support of their business processes. IT has brought many benefits to the operations of organizations, as well as new risks. Internal control systems implemented to mitigate business risks thus needed to be extended to include a new group of IT controls. One of the areas of business operations that has been strongly associated with IT since the beginning of its widespread use is accounting. This master's thesis examines the effect of IT controls on financial statements of an organization as well as an audit of these financial statements. Principal aim of this thesis is to identify a set of IT controls relevant for a statutory audit. Emphasis is placed on controls covering the areas of information security, computer operations and change management related to information systems. A secondary aim is an analysis of control weaknesses (their nature and frequency of occurence) noted in the presented set of IT controls in a sample of statutory audits conducted in the last four years. For the most common control weaknesses, risks as well as possible causes are discussed and recommendations for improvement are provided.