Modern auditing dates back to 1844 when the British required management of companies to issue audited financial statements to shareholders.1 Beginning in the 1900s, regulation delegated the audit profession with a prominent corporate governance role in the United States. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 required the financial statements of public companies to be independently audited by external auditors. Furthermore, regulatory requirements of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 increased the role of auditing in corporate governance within an organization. While the audit profession is over a century old, it has surprisingly underutilized advanced technologies in the audit process (Chan & Vasarhelyi, 2011). Auditors have slowly embraced the use of technology like other business functions (e.g., marketing, human resources, supply chain management, etc.). Except for the use of spreadsheets and computerized aided audit tools (CAATs), auditors have only scratched the surface in utilizing advanced audit technology to enhance their fiduciary role. Chan and Vasarhelyi (2011) emphasized that the incorporation and effective use of advanced audit technology is critical for the profession to remain relevant in the real-time economy and to support the emerging and evolving need for real-time assurance. Researchers and practitioners have both commonly agreed that the next paradigm in auditing is the use of the advanced auditing technology called continuous auditing (CA). Academic researchers have made great strides in the development of theories and the application of CA through experiments in practice.

现代审计可以追溯到1844年，当时英国要求公司管理层向股东发布经审计的财务报表。1从19世纪开始，监管部门授权审计行业在美国具有显著的公司治理作用。1934年的《证券交易法》要求上市公司的财务报表必须由外部审计师独立审计。此外，2002年《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》的监管要求增加了审计在组织内部公司治理中的作用。虽然审计行业已有一个多世纪的历史，但在审计过程中却令人惊讶地未充分利用先进技术（Chan&Vasarheli，2011）。审计人员已经慢慢接受了技术的使用，就像其他业务职能一样（例如，市场营销、人力资源、供应链管理等）。除了使用电子表格和计算机辅助审计工具（CAAT），审计师在利用先进的审计技术来增强其受托人的作用方面只触及了表面。在2011年的经济发展过程中，赫尚强调了技术和技术的实时性和有效性的必要性。研究人员和实践者都一致认为，下一个审计范式是使用称为持续审计（CA）的高级审计技术。学术研究者通过实践中的实验，在理论的发展和CA的应用方面取得了长足的进步。