Audits should be checking the systems used to report to verify that the figures aggregated are accurate. Simple sampling should be used to determine this when the process is approved by the board.

What SOX lacks is a real time acounting system that cannot be changed or rendered useless by human whim. So the contracts of each entry to the charts of accounts should be minted at the functional level. The detail captured within a particular routine can then be layered into the overall charts of accounts to determnine the financial statements. This level of automation would require each phase of a process to be documented and Ricardo-ized then each Contract needs to be intergrated into the overall charts and ledgers.

This layering of contracts would create a real time aggregation that can be isolated down to its finite level of detail, avoiding the batching schemes and nightmares of old. So the isolation of the business process down to its accounting functions without grossed up entries would create a real time picture of an entity's financial well being.

The only thing left after the process is established is to check the layered contracts conform to the processes as observed. The contract and its action must be corrected by a corresponding anti-contract or reversal; the minting of reversals could provide information on processes and utilization of resources.

So clerk alice pays contractor bob for massage therapy, this bill is paid via a contract established by supervisor joe. When jo drafted the contract with bob it was for a time period to massage the staff's stiff necks. After the time period elapsed bob submitted the contract to alice. The supervisor joe had the contract in the system and alice credited it against a dda balance. The contract for bob's services, alice's action in paying upon acceptance of the bill, and joe's authorization are all in an array of contracts that live in the sub accounting routine in the charts of accounts. Of course joe the supervisor would have to have been authorized to mint a contract or transmit that information to the appointed minter.

The payment is the process and the point of capture. To audit this would take almost no time. The fact that bob and alice had a side deal along with joe that billed the company for services not really rendered and they all took the money and went on vacation is undectable and would never show up on any form of audit because the dishonest behavior of folks acting in concert is hard to detect unless as always happens once alice finds joe and bob are not to her liking she turns the crew in. So in the end the audit serves no purpose other than to ensure the process works the way they say it does. Most audits only verify process not balances.