西元2002 年，美國許多大企業發生了會計醜聞，為了重拾投資大眾對證卷市場的信心，美國國會通過了沙賓法案(Sarbanes-Oxley Act.以下簡稱SOX)。SOX 法案要求管理當局必須對攸關財務報表的內部控制加以評估，並且要聘任會計師加以查核。SOX 法案409 節要求公開發行公司必須在每季結束後的35 天內提出季報且在每年結束後的60 天內提出年報藉以加速財務報導的揭露。因此，為了符合SOX 法案的要求下，許多公開發行公司開始考慮持續性審計。然而持續性審計的文獻都只是概念性的介紹，而目前的查核人員對於持續性審計是否有落實到查核工作，並且應有的正確認知，來確保財務報表能夠達到時效性與可靠性，則鮮少有文獻探討。
為了能夠符合SOX 法案的要求，最好的方法就是執行企業資源規劃系統(ERP)。因此持續性審計的對進行對象為ERP 系統的主體。本研究分析比較傳統環境與ERP 環境下的內部控制風險的差異點，並以銷售循環為例，歸納出ERP 環境下，控制測試與交
易證實測試應有的查核程序，以問卷的方式針對國內四大會計師事務所查核人員的認知進行調查。研究結果發現，由於企業已經有相當比例的ERP 系統，然而絕大多數查核人員未體察系統的控制功能，仍沿用傳統的查核方法，而且未能善用查核軟體進行證實
測試，不但無法達到持續性審計的精神，也浪費了查核成本，因此必須為廣大的會計界重視與檢討。
In 2002,a number of major corporate and accounting scandals involving prominent companies in the U.S. motivated Congress to enact the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, in order to assure investor confidence in the integrity of the capital markets. Section 404 requires that management must evaluate the design of internal control over financial reporting and requires CPA firms to attest it as well. Section 409 speeds up financial
reporting by requiring public companies to file quarterly reports within 35 days of the close of the quarter and annual reports within 60 days of the close of the year. In order to address the mandates of SOX, many of companies start to cogitate a continuous auditing. However documents of continuous auditing are all only concept introductions, and whether auditor’s cognition of the continuous auditing for auditing, in order to assure the financial statement can reach the timeliness and reliable, but seldom have document discussions. In order to address the mandates of SOX, the most cost-efficient approach for public companies is to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning System. So the target of the continuous auditing is ERP. In this paper, we introduce and discuss that the difference of the internal control risk in the traditional environment and ERP, and take an example of the distribution cycle, and induce the audit program of the tests of controls and the substantive tests in the ERP, surveys were conducted on randomly selected four major accounting firms. The result of study is found that most enterprises have already implement ERP, but many of auditors don’t notice the function of the control in the systems, and still use traditional audit program, and don’t use the Generalized Audit Software for the substantive tests. It’s neither reach the interior of SOX nor save a lot of audit cost, so accountant must respect and examen.
