Actualiteit

The IIA’s new Global Perspectives & Insights, “Internal audit and compliance: Clarity and collaboration for stronger governance,” explains why a clear understanding of roles is critical to effective compliance and independent assurance. The report includes analysis on applying the Three Lines Model’s Six Principles and practical illustrations from practitioners. Download now to review the top four key takeaways.  

The Institute of Internal Auditors’ (IIA’s) Internal Audit Foundation (IAF), in collaboration with AuditBoard, has released a new research report, “The Remote Auditor: Challenges, Opportunities, and New Ways of Working,” which assesses the impact of remote work in the profession, explores the importance of technology in addressing remote work challenges, and shares best practices for remote working and sustaining a positive virtual work environment. As we approach the third year of the pandemic, the question “when do we return to normal?” has largely been replaced with “how do we capitalize on the lessons learned over the past two years to further empower and support the hybrid workforce moving forward?” The report presents poll and survey results that help assess the impact of remote work on the profession as a means to answer this critical question. The report cites findings from The IIA’s 2021 North American Pulse of Internal Audit survey, where 58% of chief audit executives (CAEs) indicated their teams were doing all or most of their work remotely and a further 22% said their teams were utilizing a hybrid approach of roughly equal remote and in-person work. This shift to remote and hybrid audit functions has spurred investments in technology. New survey data collected for the report reveals that since the start of the pandemic, more than half of the respondents’ organizations have acquired cloud-based technology to help with remote collaboration and risk management. “As fully remote and hybrid work models continue to become more common, an increasing number of audit teams are discovering that modern audit technology can help them better collaborate on their work, more rapidly surface risks, and drastically improve alignment and communication with business stakeholders," explained John Reese, chief marketing officer at AuditBoard. "In today's broad and dynamic risk environment it’s imperative for internal audit departments to move in this direction." One notable challenge of remote working is the ability to build and maintain relationships with colleagues and audit stakeholders. Leaders must make a conscious effort to schedule formal and informal meetings to ensure connectivity and strong relationships across all levels of the organization. “Audit functions that had done a couple of things before the pandemic started — including establishing very strong relationships, making good investments in technology, and applying the technology as part of their working methodologies — really had a big advantage when the pandemic hit,” says Harold Silverman, The IIA’s director of executive membership. “What we have seen is that a lot of less mature internal audit functions that learned the lessons from their peers are starting to make some of the same investments, especially with the expectation that remote work will continue.” Cultivating an adaptive and intentional mindset will enable auditors to take advantage of lessons learned from the shift to remote work. One company noted in the report did just that, reevaluating their processes and refocusing on the highest risks, and the result was a decrease in travel time from 50% to 25% for their auditors, which saved the company time and money. Going forward, communication skills and analytical and critical thinking are likely to be vital in order to successfully transition from in-person to hybrid or remote auditing.

Within the public sector, procurement is a huge expense funded with taxpayer dollars. Internal audit can provide assurance on the effectiveness of an organization’s plans and programs to procure goods and services with efficient practices. This practice guide will help auditors understand public procurement, improve existing procurement processes, and offer advisory services that help organizations plan new procurements. This practice guide helps auditors: Compare differing methods of public sector procurement. Examine several approaches and their benefits to auditing procurement. Identify contemporary, relevant procurement tools and techniques. Understand the impact of poor procurement on the entity/agency. This is for members only. To access it and other valuable resources, become a member today.

This report helps readers understand business resilience versus business continuity, and how stakeholder and board expectations have changed with recent disruption. Are We Ready? It’s Time for Internal Audit to Focus on Resilience Amid Extreme Change The Internal Audit Foundation, in collaboration with Protiviti, released a new report, “Are We Ready? It’s Time for Internal Audit to Focus on Resilience Amid Extreme Change,” to explain business continuity versus resilience. Addressing business resilience is a challenge. But it is necessary to meet stakeholder expectations for deeper and broader strategic insights and to gain a sharper understanding of enterprise changes and priorities. Now is the time for internal auditors to think and act boldly about the activities needed to help their organizations manage known and unknown risks.

Digitization is playing an increasingly important role in our (work) lives. Look inside any company and you will see that there are always ongoing projects to further digitize. Every company has to move with the times or else it will be overtaken by reality. The same also applies to an Internal Audit Function (IAF). There was a need from IAFs and the Chief Audit Executives (CAE) to gain insight into the market for Audit Management Systems (AMS) in the Netherlands and best practices with regard to selection and implementation. This research report helps to form a view of the AMS market in the Netherlands. First, the research team made an inventory of the market, then a survey was sent to 220 CAEs known to the IIA Netherlands to share experiences about the use of AMS, reasons for purchasing, but also best practices and learning points during selection and implementation processes. Subsequently, the research team contacted a number of suppliers, whereby information was shared by them about the latest trends in the field of AMS. Finally, the outcome was with a number of CAEs during two Roundtables. An extensive package comparison was not the aim of this study, but the results can serve as a basis for the selection of an AMS.