Problem

What are the potential exposures in the above scenario? and what actions should the external auditors plan to take? Explain.

Previts Office Equipment

Two years ago, an external auditing firm supervised the programming of embedded audit modules for Previts Office Equipment Company. During the audit process this year, the external auditors requested that a transaction log of all transactions be copied to the audit file. The external auditors noticed large gaps in dates and times for transactions being copied to the audit file. When they inquired about this, they were informed that increased processing of transactions had been burdening the companys hardware, and that operators frequently had to turn off the embedded audit modules to allow the processing of important transactions in a timely fashion. In addition, much maintenance had been performed during the past year on the application programs.