AICPA, or the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, recently released a proposal for a new set of standards around the auditing of evidence for cases. In particular, this new set of AICPA guidelines is around making accommodations for data from blockchain transactions. This proposal was released in a trade publication on June 24.

This new proposal has been nicknamed the proposed statement on auditing standards, or SAS. The audit evidence will supposedly set guidelines on how accountants and auditors are going to evaluate the evidence from audits of blockchain systems. That evidence will come from new technology such as blockchain and data analytics.

These new standards should be a neutral and multidimensional set of measurements for the evaluation of audit data from any source. The goal of the new set of guidelines is to help auditors decide if the information that they have obtained through the auditing process is appropriate and sufficient.

According to Robert Dohrer, who is the chief auditor of AICPA, this proposal was released in order to accommodate new sources of auditing data. He stated that because of the rapid evolution of evidence and the new sources of that evidence that accountants need to view today, it is important that the auditors have a robust and lasting set of attributes so that they can make assessments that are objective and consistent. The guidelines should also be appropriate to the auditing evidence and ensure sufficiency of the evidence.

The certified public accountants organization AICPA is the one that sets all of the standards for auditing of various types of private businesses, public corporations and federal, state and local governments. It is also important at this time to note that the world's four largest auditing firms are partnering with 20 banks in Taiwan in order to start a pilot program for conducting fiscal audits of blockchain technology.

This set of guidelines should streamline different processes in audits. The solution should also decrease the amount of time that it takes in order to conduct an audit. The pilot program in Taiwan created a 93 percent reduction in auditing time.