Design and Development of an Automated Internal Audit Management System for Federal Polytechnics in North-East Nigeria: A Case Study of Federal Polytechnic Bauchi

Abstract

Internal audit is responsible for checking financial transactions, examining internal controls, confirming compliance with approved procedures, safeguarding institutional resources and reporting weaknesses to management. In Federal Polytechnics, these duties involve large volumes of payment records, revenue transactions, payroll information, procurement documents, stores records and financial reports. When audit work depends heavily on separate files and manual records, the retrieval of evidence, review of transactions and follow-up of audit observations can be slow and difficult to track. This study presents the design and development of an Automated Internal Audit Management System for Federal Polytechnics in North-East Nigeria, using Federal Polytechnic Bauchi as the case institution. The proposed system brings audit planning, voucher examination, revenue and expenditure review, payroll and procurement checks, stores and asset verification, bank-reconciliation review, working papers, audit queries, recommendation follow-up and reporting into one controlled environment. The study uses a design-oriented case-study approach and user acceptance testing. The institutional UAT dataset contains 120 responses to 20 five-point Likert-scale items measuring perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, security readiness and system use/acceptance. Data screening identified 12 missing item responses and three uniform response patterns; the three affected cases were excluded, leaving 117 responses for inferential analysis. The four measures showed good internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .829 to .895. Perceived ease of use (β = .514, p < .001) and security readiness (β = .431, p < .001) were significant predictors of system use/acceptance, while perceived usefulness was positive but did not reach the .05 level (β = .124, p = .052). The regression model explained 59.8% of the variation in system use/acceptance. The findings show that ease of operation and confidence in the controls surrounding the system are important considerations for staff using an automated audit system. The study provides a practical basis for strengthening audit records, transaction review and follow-up within Federal Polytechnics.

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