Automated Contract Audit Scoring via Dynamic Criteria Selection
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing auditing processes for business contracts are prone to human error and inconsistency due to manual procedures and lack of flexibility in selecting and weighting criteria, leading to variations in auditor interpretations and potential oversight of important criteria.
Innovation Solution
The development of automated auditing systems that generate audit templates with dynamically selected questions and weighted answers, allowing for the derivation of an audit score based on user input, which can be compared to threshold values and presented graphically, ensuring consistent and repeatable evaluations of contract compliance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual auditing procedures are used, then flexibility in auditor judgment is maintained, but human error and inconsistency increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical auditing process with an automated computer-based system. The system automatically retrieves agreement text, applies audit criteria, and generates audit scores without human intervention in the core auditing steps, thereby eliminating human error and inconsistency while maintaining reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The auditing system performs self-service by automatically retrieving agreement information from databases, selecting applicable audit criteria based on agreement attributes, and calculating audit scores without requiring manual input from auditors for these tasks. This automation ensures consistent application of audit standards.
2Reliability
If standardized audit scripts are supplied, then human variability is reduced, but adherence to scripts cannot be guaranteed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the manual process of following standardized scripts with an automated computer-based system that programmatically applies audit criteria. The system automatically retrieves agreement text, matches it against stored audit criteria, and calculates scores, ensuring 100% adherence to standardized scripts while managing complexity through software automation.
3Productivity
If automated testing systems are applied, then efficiency is improved, but flexibility in selection criteria is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic audit criteria selection system where the computer automatically selects which audit criteria to apply based on attributes of the specific agreement being audited. The system retrieves agreement information, matches it against stored criteria, and dynamically determines the relevant subset of criteria to evaluate, providing both efficiency and flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes parameters dynamically by adjusting which audit criteria are applied based on the specific agreement attributes. Different agreement types, industries, or risk profiles trigger different subsets of audit criteria, allowing the automated system to adapt its evaluation parameters to each specific auditing scenario.
4Reliability
If multiple auditors review agreements, then diverse perspectives are obtained, but variations in interpretation and criteria application occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces multiple human auditors with a single automated computer-based auditing system. This system applies audit criteria objectively and consistently to all agreements without the interpretive variations that occur between different human auditors, thereby improving objectivity while simplifying the process by eliminating the need for multiple reviewers.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and associated systems for automated auditing of agreements. Questions relevant to qualitative and quantitative measures of an agreement relative to selected criteria are retrieved from an audit template along with associated answer options. The questions and answer options are presented to a user and user input received to provide answers to the questions. An audit score is generated to measure a degree of compliance of the agreement with the selected criteria. Scores may be presented for individual questions, or may be aggregated for groups or categories of questions. Scores may be compared to desired threshold values and suggestions to improve the score may be provided. Summary presentations of questions and answers or categories of questions and answers may be presented to monitor compliance over a number of such audits.