Auditape: The Power of an idea;

              'I criticize by creation, not by finding fault."—Cicero
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THE POWER OF AN IDEA
By Roy Lampe
Who in 1895 could have prophesied
the advent of the computer? Perhaps
there were some visionaries at Haskins
& Sells seventy-five years ago who
could foresee the advent of the adding
machine or the calculator. But the com­puter
as we know it was simply a
science fiction fantasy.
Today we are all witness to a phe­nomenon
that has astonished even its
inventors. The computer's power and
scope are awesome. It has opened new
frontiers for commerce, industry, med­ical
research and education. It has
changed the concepts of time and
space, creating new life conditions for
the entire world. The computer has
been hailed as the instrument that will
bring about a second industrial revolu­tion.
There are some who believe this
mighty machine can do virtually every­thing.
Not true! There is hardly an in­novation
that doesn't bring with it a
new kind of problem.
Auditors found that as the clients'
manually prepared visible records dis­appeared
into magnetic storage tape or
disc it became increasingly difficult to
trace specific accounting information in
its "invisible" computer state. The au­ditor
was faced with a choice of three
alternatives, none of which was com­pletely
satisfactory.
First, he might secure a full printout
of all accounting data, thus making
"visible" the entire record. But a full
printout often would require extra com­puter
time and cost, and would still not
select the specific data needed. Second,
he might be able to use an existing
computer program to obtain the speci­fic
details required by the auditor. But
if a client's program is used, the au­ditor
must establish its validity for his
Roy Lampe is a writer who specializes in business
and industrial subjects. He wrote the script for
Masterminding the Computer, the H&S motion
picture introducing Auditape.
specific purpose. Third, he could pre­pare
a special computer program. How­ever,
if a special program must be pre­pared
to extract the specific informa­tion,
it may become a costly, time-consuming
procedure, thus defeating
the major advantages the computer has
to offer: speed and efficiency at a low
cost. Also, the two latter alternatives
would require that auditors be experi­enced
in computer programming.
As these problems mounted, it be­came
increasingly apparent to Ken
Stringer, partner in the H&S Executive
Office responsible for developing au­diting
standards and procedures, that
there was a critical need to develop a
new method of reaching specific infor­mation
stored in computer form, inex­pensively
and on demand.
In the fall of 1964 Mr. Stringer ar­ranged
for the initial work on this criti­cal
project, and early in 1965 recruited
some of the keenest computer-oriented
minds in the Firm to continue work on
it. This team included Jimmie Dunn
and Bob Egan of the Houston Office,
Joe Wesselkamper of the Cincinnati
Office, and Frank Devonald of the New
York Office. The team's mission: to cre­ate
a generalized computer program
that could provide the capability of
reading and selecting specific informa­tion
from masses of stored data and
yet be used by persons having no
specialized knowledge of computers or
programming languages.
It was a difficult, arduous task re­quiring
months of continuous explora­tion,
evaluation, analysis and agonizing
reappraisal. By November 1965 the
team had developed a system called
the Computer Audit Programs, con­sisting
of a Computer Audit Tape and
a Computer Audit Deck. Although this
system was distributed to H&S offices
and used successfully at that stage of
development, the team realized there
was need for further improvements to
meet the criteria established at the be­ginning
of the project. Early in 1966,
Bob Egan and Joe Wesselkamper were
transferred to the Executive Office to
concentrate on the project full-time.
By September of that year the Firm's
concerted thrust paid off — the new
Auditape System was unveiled. The
Haskins & Sells team had created an
auditor's "key to the computer"—a sys­tem
that is capable of handling com­puter
records in virtually any format,
requiring no special programming by
the auditor and minimal training. It
can obtain essential information eco­nomically
with a speed previously un­known
to auditors and without a del­uge
of extraneous information.
Although primarily conceived as an
aid to the auditor, the Auditape System
was recognized as a potentially impor­tant
management tool. Its flexibility
could bring a new dimension to infor­mation
retrieval, especially when data
is needed by management to make a
crisis decision and there is no program
for this one-time requirement.
Haskins & Sells introduced its Audi-tape
System concept to its clients in the
fall of 1966 through a series of regional
meetings throughout the country. An
orientation team consisting of John
Queenan, Ken Stringer, Joe Wessel­kamper
and Bob Egan described the
Auditape System and offered it to the
clients for their use. Even as this series
of meetings began additional features