Control Automation to Reduce Costs of Control

Much compliance effort concerns adherence to contracts. Controls are added to the business process to make sure the other party will fulfill his part of the contract. Controls have costs. In this paper we argue that fully automated controls help to lower control costs, because (i) they help to prevent misstatements (compliance by design) or (ii) they increase the quality of audit evidence and thereby reduce the audit risk and additional audit fees. The line of reasoning is illustrated by a case study of the implementation of automated controls on the procurement process for public transport services for the elderly and disabled. The case study suggests some open issues, which can be linked to concepts from Normative Multi Agent Systems.