kj_86: The List

2011-07-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

kj_86: The List: "#1 - Laugh until you cry #2 - Watch 30 Rock #3 - Read Hans & Rebels by Jessica Mitford #4 - Run for Mayor of Taunton #5 - Go t..."

The starting point for auditors

2011-02-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

I am not popular around the Company, the main reason (apart from my poor sense of humour) is that I am an Auditor, specifically and Internal Auditor. This is a role that's origin comes from trust. Your stakeholders (management, shareholders, the public) do not trust that you are doing your job. Because of this they would call in people like me to check and let them know how you are doing. No a great foundation for departments welcoming us in with open arms and cries of "next time, don't leave it so long!".

I thought my first blog should be about what we are looking for and how we approach the job, in a way I am hoping to reduce the fear of audit and auditors by providing some insight into what we are going to ask and test, and most importantly why. Perhaps one day (probably not in the near future) I might become popular enough to get invited to the cool parties at work.

Modern Internal Audit uses a risk based approach. We asses the risk in an organisation and develop our audit programmes based on areas that have the highest risk. I think if you are working in an area that seems to be audited frequently, you must be doing a pretty important job.

What we are really looking for is assurance that you know what your objectives are and that you have identified and managed the risks associated with achieving these objectives. This can be done in a number of ways to suit your organisation.

It would be amiss of me blogging for Covalent, to not mention the benefits of using a tool such as Covalent Enterprise Risk Management software for facilitating some of the hard work of capturing and evidencing (us auditors love evidence) the risks across your organisation.

So this is it, the key to keeping an auditor happy is simply knowing your risks and managing them in a transparent and identifyable way.

Oh No Audit are Coming

kj_86: The List

The starting point for auditors