Here Are 11 Measures you Can Take To Solve The Internal Audits Problems

January 1 , 2022

In the business industry, the question that is heard most of the time is, “Why do internal audits have such importance?.” Is it essential for the smaller organisations to be spending on the internal audits keeping in mind their limited budget and resources? Well, this is a simple question that has a simple answer indeed. You ask yourself whether you want your customers to have efficient, secure, and compliant services? You must consider spending on internal audits without a second thought if you do. This is the reason we see the importance of site audit pro in internal auditing.

It is a highly crucial aspect of information security and acts as a worthy tool for appropriately and effectively managing the risk. You get a clear overview to observe if you are actually accomplishing what you express you do? You may look for the possible gaps in your procedures and policies to find room for improvements. How can you make things work in the best way that contributes to the organisation’s success? These are the questions the internal auditing works on and ensure to bring top-notch results in real-time. The governance provided by it helps in internal control processes and the organisation’s independent assurance.

The improved and matured organisation’s business practices are the objectives of internal auditing. The culture, procedures, and policies must be comprehended by having crucial insights that can only be gained by internal auditing. Any type of threat has to be far away from doing any damage to the company. Furthermore, assurance is vital regarding all the business assets being safeguarded. The documented policy you work on for the business’s smooth flow has to be reflected by the processes that run within.   There is no one method to guarantee that the internal audits are done perfectly. Honestly, it all depends on how experienced the internal auditor is. The ways that he prefers to perform the audits and what practices he uses.

The real time reports can be analysed to observe the results of the audits to determine if they are working or not. Moreover, the risks are always thought of before things begin so that they can be avoided before creating problems. The goal is to ensure that better decisions are always made by identifying risk exposures. However, the ultimate goal always has to be the opportunity for your customers to have the best solutions from your business.

11 Steps To Make Internal Audits Successful

It is necessary that the internal audit must be seen as more of a vendor than an audit report. The following 11 measures will help you in seeing how they can work perfectly for you.

1. Do Your Homework
   

   

It would help if you learned everything about who you are auditing. You must know their performance last year to know how well they did. The previous reports will help you analyse things quite easily. Additionally, you must look into them and ensure that they understand the market quite well. Also, always ensure to check if they understand their clients’ needs.

2. Identification Of The Primary Pain Point
   

   

In the entrance meeting, always ask the business that what concerns do they have that they want to deal with? It may happen that they do not talk about the main problem. This is why you can ask them about their primary objective for the current year. Are the back office problems being concerning them frequently? Identifying the pain point is the first step towards its solution.

3. Make Connections
   

   

This will require you to look across the entire organisation. You can have any other business in the market doing things with the same approach this current business has; you can have them both connected. No endorsing of other business managers’ approaches will be done here. The shared knowledge might be able to produce some great results as long as the practices are the same.

4. Ensure The Team Understanding
   

   

It is so crucial that your auditors know who will they be auditing. This goes beyond just knowing the name and standing of the company. Your auditors must know who they really are and how long it has been for them to work in this organisation. They also have to see if they recently transferred to the group? Or were they promoted and still understanding their job description? Moreover, it would be helpful to know if they have ever been audited before and how effective they were after the results? If your team deeply understands who they have to work with, then subsequently, the results will be mesmerising, and they can move on to the next steps.

5. Expansion Of The Test Coverage
   

   

Always ensure to add the primary objection or the pain point to your to-do list. It does not matter if it was initially on your audit scope. By focusing on the primary objective, the identification of the potential risks becomes much easier. It will allow you to mitigate all those risks, and the controls will be explicitly tested. This empowers you to have a complete overview of all the concerning problems and a way out to address them effectively.

6. Scrutinise Control Design And Function
   

   

On testing the control every time, always ask who will perform the task? How frequently will they be doing it? What problems will be solved because of it, and what will it prevent?

Is there a possibility of a pain point for the individual accomplishing the job? The control can always be simple and effective, but it can be tedious as well. Finding a solution for the pain point will be the goal.

7. Consult The Community
   

   

On auditing a new area or the new function, you may not be sure that what the pain point is or how to find one. If you do not get any help from the business as well, then consulting the internal audit community will be helpful and insightful. This is an effective way of gaining informative knowledge to do the work.

8. Use Of The Solving Market Problems
   

   

When you list down the findings, ensure to use the framework of solving problems. For instance, John is a first-time people manager, and he is assigned with reviewing two individual reports each week to check the staff’s time off. The reconciliation effort takes 2 hours each week, costing the organisation a whole day of productive time every other month. This will help you demonstrate John’s position and what is the pain point for him. It costs the organisation loss of productivity because it happens frequently.

This is not only about John, as it is happening all across the organisation. One day of unproductivity seems much less than what it will cost the whole organisation with so many other employees dealing with the same thing. This does not indicate you can not use IIA standards of the framework regarding effect, conditions, and costs, but ensure that it is insightful. You can have that done quite effectively with the help of the site audit pro app, though.

9. Consideration Of The Balance Report
   

   

Not all organisations use the approach of a balanced report. On noticing the improvement of the process, if you want to change how the particular step works, it has to be audited first. It will help with ensuring that the change you are making is perfectly designed. It operates as you want it to with the intended functionality and helps the process to be completed smoothly. This will help the auditors highlight that action, which will subsequently be recognised as a well-done job. This is how the actions can be added to improve the working of the internal audits.

10. Everything Can be Audited
    

    

We often see the auditors making a fine line between the things that can be audited and those that can not be audited. This leads to missed opportunities to perform so many relevant audits. With the mindset that nothing is un-auditable, you can see things becoming pretty empowering for you and intimidating as well. This is the reason for the competencies with a diverse team to deliver. It is always easy to audit the same things every year, but it is indeed a challenge to expand the scope and make your team members valuable.

11. End With The Start
    

    

In the closing meeting, begin with your understanding of their market and the assessment of the problem. If your discussion is relevant to them, they will observe that you are more than a vendor of the audit’s report. They will trust to call upon you whenever any problem occurs. How you communicate your strategies and put them to work has to be on the same level to drive results.

Conclusion

Understanding and mastering the internal audit workflow can do wonders for the organisation. With the help of the internal audits, timely insights are provided to the company. The diverse team of internal auditors can help the organisation help in focusing on the competencies, align the audits’ goals, and cultivate the consulting service mindset.

Also Read: 6 Essential Techniques Of Internal Audit Management