ABSTRACT:

Throughout the 1980s, large public accounting firms worked to develop expert systems for auditing tasks. This development was driven by increasing competition and specialization, decreasing audit fees, and pressure to boost the efficiency of audits without lessening effectiveness (Messier 1986). Little research has examined how these expert systems impact the firms using them.

A Delphi investigation was undertaken to determine the most and least likely impacts on auditing firms of using expert systems as audit tools. The Delphi method is particularly useful under two circumstances. First, the study of the problem does not lend itself to precise analytical techniques but benefits from subjective collective judgments. Second, the individuals who need to interact cannot be brought together in a face-to-face exchange because of time or cost constraints (Linstone 1985). These consensus forecasts are more accurate than 95 percent of individual forecasts, and iteration reveals more reflective opinions than single surveys (Parente et al. 1984).

The Delphi panel, which was composed of those actively researching, developing, implementing and using expert systems, suggests expert systems are very likely to have an impact on auditing firms in the next decade. Specific impacts identified as very likely include better documentation references, enhanced distribution of expertise, increased ability to handle complex analyses, and improved decision consistency and quality. The panel also indicated that use of expert systems in auditing is very likely to result in changes in the education of auditors, particularly in-house training. The least likely impact identified was loss of prestige for firms using expert systems. In addition, the Delphi panel concluded that efficiency is only somewhat likely to be improved by expert systems.

This study provides new evidence for the types of expert systems impacts that are likely to occur in the next decade. It also changes some of the popular conceptions of audit expert systems impacts on efficiency that have been widely suggested in the literature, but for which little evidence has been gathered. For example, in the literature one of the most often mentioned types of impact is efficiency impacts. However, this study concludes that effectiveness, expertise, and education impacts are more likely to occur than efficiency impacts.