A company has a significant investment in inventory. This inventory is managed using IT systems, from issuing a purchase order to requesting inventory items, recording shipments of inventory to the customer, and recording the transaction in the general ledger. Given the materiality of the inventory, the auditor must identify key internal controls. How might the auditor initially go about identifying such key internal controls?

A.

Identify unpaid purchase orders and confirm they are recorded in accounts payable.

B.

Look for changes to edits in the computer code used by the systems.

C.

Compare systems documentation to information from interviews with employees who work with the systems.

D.

Perform physical inventory counts and compare this information with what is contained in the general ledger.