Patent ID: 8442880

Claim:
A method of providing electronic confirmations of confidential business information about an audited business client that is maintained by a third-party, when such confirmations are requested by an auditor user conducting a financial statement audit of the business client in accordance with professional accounting standards for auditors, said method comprising the steps of: storing verification data in a computer system comprising a database, the verification data comprising first verification data and second verification data; receiving at the computer system a first input at the computer system from the auditor user, the first input comprising first identification data; verifying the auditor user by comparing the first verification data with the first verification data in the computer system; receiving at the computer system from the auditor user a confirmation request comprising an account identification data and a date; storing the confirmation request in the database, the database further storing a first association of the confirmation request with the auditor user; receiving at the computer system from the third-party a second input comprising second identification data; verifying the third-party by comparing the second identification data with the second verification data in the computer system; receiving from the third-party a third input into the computer system to select the confirmation request; retrieving from the database the confirmation request; providing from the computer system to the third-party the confirmation request retrieved from the database; receiving at the computer system response data from the third-party, the response data comprising confidential business information comprising the account identification data, an account balance, the date, and an account type indication; storing in the database the response data and a second association of the confirmation request with the response data; receiving in the computer system a request from the auditor user for the response data; retrieving the response data from the database; and sending from the computer system to the auditor user the response data.