Setting up for success.

As we start on a new year, now is the time to set ourselves up for success. Whether setting up a new audit function from scratch, or working with an already well established operation; this brief guide will help you set yourself up for success and measure your performance throughout the year.

Our handy guide

Goals, Objectives and Performance Monitoring

As mentioned in our previous blog post here, setting objectives for the audit team which align to the company wide objectives and strategy, can help demonstrate how audit’s work is contributing to the organisation. Furthermore, these goals can then be ‘drip fed’ down to team members for inclusion in their own personal goals.

You can buy our objectives and performance monitoring template below.

Internal Audit Self Assessment

Benchmark yourself at the beginning of the year by completing the internal audit self-assessment. By completing this in January, you can then identify what areas need improvement and set these as projects for the remainder of the year. An updated self assessment can be performed after 6 or 9 months, with the results being shared with either the audit team and / or senior management, to demonstrate the continual improvement of the audit function.

You can buy our internal audit self assessment template below:

Set up your function management

Use January to set up your function and establish your ways of working. Our Weekly Status Update provides a simple tool to monitor the status of audits. By setting a consistent way of managing audits and maintaining accountability amongst the team via this tool, you can work towards completing audits in a timely manner.

You can buy our weekly status update template below:

Set a training and development plan

Leveraging off our goals and objectives template mentioned earlier, and referencing the internal audit competency framework, its a good idea to set a training plan for the year. This shows your team that you are interested in their personal development, but can also reaffirm the basics and expectations you have of your audit team.

You can buy our learning plan template below:

You can buy our introduction to internal audit training toolkit below:

Are you a member?

Members can access all of these templates as part of their monthly or annual membership. You can access the members area here.

Not a member? You can click here to sign up and become a member.