An online auditing platform Ready Auditor will substitute the manual auditing system in place in government departments and other agencies, including local governments, from September 1 for enhancing the accountability and efficiency of the process.
The new web-based system based on open source technologies was developed by a core group comprising the Principal Accountant-General, Kerala State IT Mission, National Informatics Centre as well as officials of the Commercial Taxes, Excise, Registration and Lotteries Departments under the aegis of the Principal Secretary (Taxes) W.R. Reddy to address the problems plaguing the manual audit system.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The robust, scalable version on a single platform could be used for internal and external audit of government departments as well as rural and urban local governments. It captures the entire process of the audit and enables access and usage by various units of the departments and also ensures confidentiality. The system facilitates constitution and managing of audit teams and creates forms for recording details about a file or a case. It also has SMS/e-mail based alerts and notifications facility.
The new system helps auditors view accounts online, record observations, drop observations on which the officer concerned provided satisfactory response, and generate audit inquiry reports without hassles.
The present manual auditing system is a long-drawn process and cumbersome. Once the audit observations come for review before the Public Accounts Committee, corrective action would become impossible.
ADVERTISEMENT
Similar mistakes are committed year after year and the system does not have a mechanism to prevent the recurrence of mistakes of the same nature.
The time lag between the audit inquiry and the final review often makes the entire exercise frustrating and meaningless. The protracted manual system has no slot for fixing responsibility, but the online system provides room for fixing onus on the officials who commit lapses.
The Ready Auditor has already been experimented in Commercial Taxes Department with multiple controls, including a simulated situation.