Time to consider a virtual forensic auditor

The name is catchy and topical--Virtual forensic auditor. A group of vendors--such as Oversight Systems, ACL Services and Approva--are marketing products that monitor systems and transactions continuously, even the automated transaction, to detect troublespots and help out human auditors. Oversight says that firms that deploy its system realize a return on their investment in less than a year. The idea makes sense. The devil, of course, is in the deployment details and the costs. But audit committees may want to at least take a look.