Expert interpretation of "electronic accounting archives"

On April 7, 2022, the National Archives Administration issued the "Archives Industry Standard of the People's Republic of China" DA/T 94-2022 "Specification for Electronic Accounting Archives Management," which came into effect on July 1, 2022. In this standard, electronic accounting archives are defined as: electronic accounting materials directly formed or received, transmitted, stored, and archived by electronic computers in accounting work, recording and reflecting the economic business matters of a unit, and having voucher, reference, and preservation value. Unlike the definition of electronic archives in other fields, electronic accounting archives are called electronic accounting materials before archiving, following the uniformly defined name for management objects before archiving in the Accounting Law, rather than being called "XX electronic documents."

Standardization is the primary characteristic of electronic accounting archives.First, standardization is manifested in the standardization of the archiving process and tasks at each stage, the standardization of archive file formats and preservation forms, and the clarity of responsibilities of relevant personnel at each stage. Second, standardization is manifested in the standardization of electronic accounting archive data items; all data item numbers, names and source systems of electronic accounting archives are required to be standardized. Third, standardization is manifested in the standardization of classification methods, because at the current stage the content of electronic accounting archives is basically the same as that of traditional paper archives, so the same classification methods as paper accounting archives are fully adopted. Finally, standardization is also manifested in the standardization of functional requirements of electronic accounting archives management information systems, which will help the full lifecycle management of electronic accounting archives。   

Automation is an important feature of electronic accounting archives.Accounting archives are accounting materials that have completed the accounting process and have been organized according to certain logical rules. The automation of electronic accounting archives means that the entire lifecycle of electronic accounting archives—from collection, organization, classification, filing, preservation, statistics, utilization, and disposal of electronic accounting materials—can be automated.   

According to the five-level accounting information technology maturity model defined in the 2023 Top Ten Information Technologies Affecting the Accounting Industry selection activity, electronic accounting archives are in the stage of transitioning from diffusion to maturity. Electronic accounting archive technology has formed application standards and implementation methodologies and is about to be fully applied across enterprises of different types and sizes.   

The application of electronic accounting archives will have different impacts on accounting work in different scenarios.For example, querying and borrowing accounting archives is a relatively common application scenario in accounting work. Before the accounting process is completed, accountants can consult the required accounting materials through the accounting system or related source business systems, but after the accounting process is completed, they need to consult the accounting archives. Compared with paper accounting archives, the electronic accounting archives system has built-in coding rules, stores structured data, and establishes a precise matching management model, enabling rapid query and borrowing of accounting archives while effectively reducing the cost of consulting accounting archive information. For another example, auditing is also a common application scenario for accounting archives. Whether external audit, internal audit or state audit, accounting archives are an important source of audit evidence. The four characteristics of electronic accounting archives (authenticity, usability, security, and integrity) are the accounting archive features that audits focus on, and these four characteristics are also properties that electronic accounting archives must pass testing for before archiving. Electronic accounting archives not only help effectively improve the traceability and query efficiency of the audit evidence chain, but also help promote the application of online auditing and remote auditing.

Source: internet

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