This study responds to the call for research on Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in auditing. Existing research on RPA in auditing focuses on unattended automation in which no or little human interaction is required. Since more than half of the audit tasks require certain levels of auditors’ judgement and cannot be fully automated (Abdolmohammadi 1999), we propose that audit automation should consider attended automation, in which auditors work alongside automation routines. We adopt the Design Science Research (DSR) methods and propose an Attended Process Automation (APA) framework that guides the implementation of attended automation in audit. We also apply the APA framework to the planning process of Single Audits, a type of external audit, to build an illustrative prototype. The APA framework emphasizes auditors' vital role in an automated audit workflow in providing professional judgements that are currently irreplaceable by automation.

Audit Process Automation and Process Redesign: An Exploratory Implementation.

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 AAA 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting and Conference on Teaching and Learning

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