What is integrated test facility (ITF) approach in internal audit?

Concurrent Audit Techniques (contain.)

Auditors normally use five concurrent audit techniques:

(1) Integrated test facility [ITF],

(2) Snapshot technique,

(3) System control audit review file [SCARF],

(4) Audit Hooks,

(5) Continuous and Intermittent Simulation (CIS)

Integrated Test Facility (ITF)

      An integrated test facility (ITF) technique places a small set of fictitious records in the master files.

      The auditor compares processing with expected results to verify that the system and its controls are operating correctly.

Integrated test facility is a sort of CAATs used by the auditors to make an assessment of the financial applications. 

Integrated test facility is a computer auditing technique used both external & internal auditors, information system auditors, risks analysts and for everyone who develops standard applications in Account View and wishes to test them automatically in a variety of ways.

Benefit from the fact that ITF has been developed especially for Account View and supports accounting processes. Use the special test scenarios to check whether entries have been made to the correct ledger accounts, to confirm that warehouse quantities correspond with the rest of the stocks administration, that processing speed has not been reduced, that operation in a network environment does not cause problems (network tests), or that particular keystrokes still have the same effect.

Following are the main advantages of integrated test facility:

• The integrated testing and development environment of Account View.
• Sample scenarios that illustrate the scenario testing language and a series of test techniques and which can be used as a model for your own scenarios.
• An elaborate test company that you can use as the basis for input data and which, among other things, includes ledger accounts, customers, suppliers and products of many types and sizes.
• Recording of number of checks and error reports in each scenario.
• Scenario blocking function, to temporarily exclude particular scenarios.
• Scenario demark function, to temporarily suspend the marking of particular scenarios.
• Language-dependence of each scenario, so as to distinguish between those which are language-independent and those which, for example, make use of language-specific keystrokes.
• Various forms of testing, including regression, boundary, stress and network test scenarios.
• Marking and implementation of multiple scenarios.
• Summary of all error reports in the scenarios implemented.
• Improvement in the quality of your applications, enabling you to increase your customers' confidence in you
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incorporate test transactions into a normal production run of a system to eleminate the risk of wrong transaction or worng outputs

An integrated test facility (ITF) creates a fictitious entity in a database to process test transactions simultaneously with live input. It can be used to incorporate test transactions into a normal production run of a system. Its advantage is that periodic testing does not require separate test processes. However, careful planning is necessary, and test data must be isolated from production data. Integrated test facility is considered a useful audit tool during an IT audit because it uses the same programs to compare processing using independently calculated data. This involves setting up dummy entities on an application system and processing test or production data against the entity as a means of verifying processing accuracy.

The company's successful work is that you are using an accounting system facilitates their work and the work of the audit or references where the maintenance of record daily publicrecords General Ledger and securitization of all accounting operations, whether the orders to pay - Exchange - catch or accounting adjustments and thus show all the accounts and balances both City or creditor and the systemintegrated accounting for all ofits operations and it facilitates on accounts Alkhtamahobnhih the extraction say that thesuccess of any company is through its unified accounting system

An integrated test facility creates a fictitious entity in a database to process test transactions simultaneously with live input.

Mostly used by Auditor for testing transactions into a production run of a system.

The main benefit of this is that periodic testing does not require separate test processes.

It can be used to incorporate test transactions into a normal production run of a system. Its advantage is that periodic testing does not require separate test processes.However, careful planning is necessary, and test data must be isolated from production data. Integrated test facility is considered a useful audit tool during an IT Audit because it uses the same programs to compare processing using independently calculated data