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Audit Committee Reporting

3 days ago
2 min

Audit Committee Reporting

Presenting your internal audit update to the audit committee Audit committee reporting needs to be simple and to the point, yet contain sufficient information that it can easily stand up on its own. Its a tricky balance to get right, but once the right level of detail is included and all audit committee members are satisfied, the next challenge is the preparation of the audit committee deck. Preparation can often take an excessive amount of time, require a lot of manual input

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Annual Plan Dashboard and Resource Allocator

Jan 11
2 min

Annual Plan Dashboard and Resource Allocator

Manager your Internal Audit Annual Plan and team leave Managing the Annual Plan and team leave is not an easy task. There are so many competing priorities. You have to deliver X amount of audits by the end of the year with only Y team members, and there is every chance once of those team members could leave during the year. You then have to make sure you deliver a Z audits to each quarterly audit committee, but you then need to make sure each team member has ample time to tak

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Audit Objectives - What are your goals for 2021?

Dec 24, 2020
5 min

Audit Objectives - What are your goals for 2021?

6 goals to help your audit team succeed in the new year 2020 has thrown a lot of challenges at audit teams, but overall, teams have stepped up to the challenge and proven their worth. Internal Audit's position within a business has shown just how important we are, and given some real exposure to the knowledge contained in our team. But with all this good work done in 2020, audit teams may have their own challenges going into 2021. Re-setting the annual plan for 2021, focusing

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Applying Agile to your Annual Planning process

Nov 25, 2020
5 min

Applying Agile to your Annual Planning process

With the impact of COVID, and more generally, a change in the way we work, a traditional approach to annual planning may not be possible. Audit teams which are stretched as a result of the havoc created by the pandemic and the need for businesses to react swiftly, may be short on time for their annual planning. Annual planning is a critical activity which must be performed each year. Not only does it set the agenda of audit activity for the year to come, but it also ensures w

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2021 Internal Audit Hot Topic and Focus Areas

Nov 20, 2020
3 min

2021 Internal Audit Hot Topic and Focus Areas

A summary from across the web of 2021's Internal Audit Hot Topic's, Focus Area's and Risk Priorities. We have searched across the web; through each of the Big 4's websites, through the IIA, and across thought leadership sites to find out what they all consider to be the top risk / focus areas for Internal Audit going into 2021. These guys are generally on the mark. Last year, the IIA Risk in Focus report said business continuity was one key focus area for Head's of Audit goin

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Covid and your Internal Audit Annual Plan

Oct 26, 2020
3 min

Covid and your Internal Audit Annual Plan

Top 5 things to consider when building your Internal Audit Annual Plan as a result of COVID-19 2020 has been a year for the history books and something which we will all remember for a long time to come. However 2020 isn't over, and Covid looks like it could well be joining us in 2021, meaning the ride isn't over yet. This also means, audit needs to plan appropriately for 2021. With most audit department's (who run to a calendar year), likely holding stakeholder discussions a

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Internal Audit Strategy

Oct 19, 2020
2 min

Internal Audit Strategy

Why you should have a strategy for your Internal Audit department and how to write one Similar to an organisation's own strategy, a strategy for an internal audit department is beneficial for detailing the objectives of the audit department and how we are going to get there. An Internal Audit strategy will also help shows how the department's activities link to the wider objectives and strategy of the organisation. There is no specific standard requiring an Internal Audit Str

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Internal Audit Manual Template

Sep 27, 2020
4 min

Internal Audit Manual Template

Whilst each audit department should abide by the requirements as set out in the International Professional Practices Framework (IPPF), it's the audit manual which spells out specifically how the audit team will uphold these standards. In this post, we're going to explain what an internal audit manual is, what it contains, why you need one, and how to successfully implement a manual into your audit team. Throughout this post, we're going to demonstrate various aspects of the a

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Three Lines Model

Jul 29, 2020
2 min

Three Lines Model

IIA updates defense model On the 20th July, The Institute of Internal Auditors released its updated Three Lines of Defense Model. The new three lines model is essentially an updated version for the well known and understood four line model. The change in the model is to not only simplify processes, but also better reflect current business arrangements and to emphasise more active forms of risk management and governance that go beyond merely defensive moves by the internal aud

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Internal Audit Self Assessment Checklist

Jul 27, 2020
5 min

Internal Audit Self Assessment Checklist

Performing a periodic self assessment as part of your Quality Assurance Improvement Program The International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing (Standards) set the mandatory requirements for every Internal Audit function. As part of the Standards, there is a key component which requires audit functions to establish a Quality Assurance Improvement Program (QAIP). This post will focus only on how to develop and perform an Internal Audit Self Assessmen

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Best Way to Run a Cybersecurity Audit

Jun 29, 2020
4 min

Best Way to Run a Cybersecurity Audit

Standalone standard risk assessments are not enough to formulate and maintain a robust security strategy to protect your company’s digital assets. Cyber self-audits are critical for your business as they allow you to set parameters and goals. They also enable you to: Establish your set of security standards that you can roll out across the business. Enforce regulations and industry best practices. Determine the state of your cybersecurity and how to improve your processes. Ov

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Timesheet and Reporting Template

Jun 23, 2020
2 min

Timesheet and Reporting Template

Timesheets, whilst painful, can offer a lot of benefits. We spoke about these benefits in a recent blog post (Time for timesheets). Whilst they also have a number of benefits, we need to be careful on how we introduce timesheets back into an audit team, particularly for those audit teams who have not previously had timesheets. A good timesheet system can also be expensive. Whilst there are specific tools available, and teams can even purchase add on's such as Timesheet for Mi

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Time for timesheets

Jun 23, 2020
2 min

Time for timesheets

Why your internal audit team should be completing weekly timesheets Don't get me wrong. I hate timesheets as much as the next guy. It ruins your Friday, as you're ready you go home and then all of a sudden you get that pesky reminder email and next thing you know, your 15 minute early mark is all of a sudden taken away as you're stuck in the office recalling everything you did over the last week. It's annoying, frustrating and also worrying (are you going to get caught for t

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The power of referencing

Jun 4, 2020
3 min

The power of referencing

Why we need to ensure we reference our audit files and workpapers well It might seem like such a basic concept, but too often do we see audit teams and auditor forego referencing their audit files and their workpapers. It only takes a few minutes to do, but can save a world of problems later on. What is referencing? Referencing is a bit like indexing. Each audit file will be given a unique ID or number. For instance, an audit in 2020 for Business Continuity may be given the r

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Internal Audit Newsletter

Jun 2, 2020
2 min

Internal Audit Newsletter

Promoting the work of Internal Audit and raising awareness of who we are can help the business (and the audit function) in may ways. Whilst a newsletter may seem old school and extra admin on our already busy schedules, it can in fact pay dividends if done well. There are many formats which an Internal Audit Newsletter can take. We have developed ours in Microsoft Word, meaning it can then be either turned into a PDF and distributed across the business, uploaded to an intrane

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Business Continuity Lessons Learnt

May 13, 2020
4 min

Business Continuity Lessons Learnt

10 key questions to ask about your business resilience For some it's still a long way off, but for others, a return back to a normal life is starting to re-appear. Whilst the UK's coronavirus lock down has been extended, others such as China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, are beginning to ease restrictions and allow businesses to return somewhat back to normal. Whilst this is great news, and no doubt something businesses and employees alike are keen for, there are a

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Are internal auditors scrutinised enough?

Apr 30, 2020
5 min

Are internal auditors scrutinised enough?

I have recently been attending a training course provided by the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. The course has focused largely on recent company collapses in the UK and the role of the company's management, the accountants, the external auditor, and the regulator during the demise of some high profile businesses. The course has also touched on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee (BCIES) inquiries into Carillion and Thomas Cook

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Weekly Status Update

Apr 28, 2020
3 min

Weekly Status Update

Making sure you know where the audits are at, and who's doing what. Performing a weekly status update is a great way to ensure all audits are on track and any issues are proactively addressed before its too late. Particularly where you have a large audit team, or a large number of audits in progress, the weekly status update is a great way to stay on top of everything which is going on. We have built a template to help capture everything that's going on in a simple and straig

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Managing your internal audit plan in light of COVID-19

Apr 20, 2020
4 min

Managing your internal audit plan in light of COVID-19

Although we are a number of weeks into our 'remote working' situations, the level of disruption caused by coronavirus has severely impacted businesses in a number of ways. We have previously spoken about how Internal Audit teams may be pulled in a number of directions. Our unique position in the business means we are a great point of call for management when understanding and implementing business continuity arrangements. However, whilst we are busy helping the business in ot

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Internal Audit Annual Plan

Apr 7, 2020
4 min

Internal Audit Annual Plan

Pulling together a well rounded Internal Audit Annual Plan. At the start of the year, we released our Guidance document on the Annual Planning process along with accompanying templates. You can visit our Guidance Hub for all the details on the Annual Planning process. Our Guidance document provides and overview of the end to end Annual Planning process, of which the Internal Audit Annual Plan is one of the stages. The Internal Audit Annual Plan is a central document. It outli

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