As organizations increasingly rely on software and applications to conduct business, IT audits have become extremely important to keep operations in check. However, it can get really tough to conduct audits that are frequent, quick, cheap, as well as efficient. Thanks to new technology, it is possible to automate your organization’s IT audits. Automating helps you schedule future audits, prepare for upcoming audits in advance, and even increase their accuracy.

Here are some of the many other benefits of automating IT audits in your organization.

Keep track of audits in real-time 

If your organization is a large one with several departments that need their separate IT audits, the process can get quite tedious. There may be times when there is an urgency to interpret the results of such audits. For example, if your organization’s IT security is under an imminent cyber-threat, you would want to quickly analyze your audit results and protect your organization accordingly. Automated IT audits allow you to keep a track of results in real-time.

It helps you lower the risks

Manual audits can pose a higher risk due to inadvertent errors that may creep in. Automated IT audits do away with such risks. Automating your IT audits makes your organization’s data storage and usage more transparent. In order to automate your auditing process, you need to link all your data sources and processing portals to the audit software.

It helps increase the efficiency of the audits

Automating your IT audits also helps improve the efficiency of the entire process. Audits not only require thorough and error-free data collection, but also the analysis of the data collected in the process. The analyses and the subsequently generated reports must reveal meaningful information about the functioning of the IT system in your organization. Automating simply speeds up all parts of the auditing process.

It helps your organization save money

IT audits, just like any other audit, require planning and administrative work. This also includes reviewing the data gathered through the audit, comparing it with the results of previous audits, creating audit reports and communicating the results to all stakeholders. All these tasks add up to give massive overhead charges. Moreover, if a third-party is hired to conduct your internal audits, it will cost your organization even more. Automating your IT audits gets rid of these overhead charges and makes the entire process financially viable.

It helps you prepare for any future audits

In the case of manual audits, any change in the personnel that was previously authorized to conduct the audits can impede the process significantly. However, when you automate your IT audit, all your audit-related data and reports are stored in one place. They are already connected to the original sources of data. So, the same sequence of events can be launched again in any future audits. Moreover, since the process is automated, all your audits will become more consistent with each other.

Conclusion

The next time you are burdened with the task of conducting an IT audit, consider the many benefits of automating them.

• (This "Security Blogs" Published in January 2024  Edition)