Towards Audit 2.0 - A Web 2.0 Community Platform for Auditors

Generalized Audit Software (GAS) is a certain type of data analysis software that is increasingly used by auditors to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of audits. To date, the development and distribution of GAS follows traditional ways, that is the software is developed by a single company, without the direct participation of the users, and the completed product is sold as closed-source with no rights for any modifications. We argue that this traditional model hinders the further adoption of GAS due to the artificial barriers imposed on the users (e.g. vendor lock-in, lack of flexibility). Thus, this paper proposes a new form of GAS that is built upon the principles of Web 2.0 and aims at offering auditors a more open, more flexible, and less costly alternative to traditional solutions. The main artifacts of this new form of GAS are conceptualized in the paper and possible business models are outlined.