Paper-based documentation might not exist in an e-commerce environment, with the exception of the trading partner agreement and a separate agreement with an intermediate processor describing the confidentiality of data, control procedures by the processor, and the right to audit by the client. In paper-based systems, the paper document in the form of an invoice, receiving report, or purchase order often serves as evidence of the transaction.

Required

a. Identify the major attributes of a paper document that would provide documentary evidence of the existence of a transaction. Consider a purchase order and a receiving document: (1) identify important fields in the document that would be of interest to the auditor; (2) examine how the auditor would determine that the document was authentic, that is, not altered by the client.

b. Perform the same analysis described in part (a) above, but with an electronic document.

c. Describe all the elements of an audit trail (log of transactions) that should be kept of transactions that are processed through e-commerce. Describe how the auditor could determine that the log of electronic transactions would contain the same validity of evidence that was formerly contained in the paper documents.

d. Assume the auditor wants to determine if an invoice was paid for the proper amount for the actual quantity of goods received. Identify the information required in order to accomplish this objective.