Audit in COVID-19 environment. Use of technology and risk focus.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the audit´s technological responses to Covid-19´s impact; it concerns its risk focus and attempts to explore responses and to understand its technological use in auditing as well as its usefulness in this environment; it also purports to analyze Covid-19´s impact on auditing focus. The methodology used consisted of a bibliographical review of scientific publications in Scopus and in Google Scholar; it also consisted of web page content analysis by categorization of publication by consulting firms named KPMG, PWC, Deloitte, EY and the construction of macrocategories. Technological responses became evident from the research results, as did remote auditing tele-work as well as continuous auditing; usefulness of technological use of artificial intelligence, robotic automatization, cloud, big data and analytics also became evident from the results. Covid-19´s impact on auditing risks concentrates on the material error in financial statements. These errors derive from the going concern hypothesis continuity valuation, as well as from the changes in the customer´s working methods and technology incorporation.