Day 1 Planning, and Automation

Course Introduction

The Internal Audit Role

• Audit’s primary roles, objectives and concerns
• What is best practice? – Sharing results of recent benchmarking surveys
• The role of the function – policeman, risk assessor or consultant?
• The reputation of the function and how to assess it
• Key performance indicators

  Exercise 1 Assessing the reputation of your function

Audit Planning

• Strategic audit planning
• Best practice audit risk planning model – (an electronic version will be provided)
• Assignment planning and control – with explanation of tools available
• Audit programme development – including use of the Internet for research
• Managing audit requests
• Fieldwork techniques
• How to cover specialist areas

  Exercise 2 Audit universe planning using the model

Audit Automation

• Computer assisted audit techniques
• Covering the whole population of data rather than a sample
• Benfords Law and its importance
• Options available

  Demonstration of ACL – the market leading audit software

Marketing of Internal Audit

• Success measures
• Methods of Marketing
• Key Performance indicators
• Tolls and techniques

  Exercise 3 Marketing the function

Skills required

• Results of recent surveys
• Outlining the broader range of skills needed
• How to carry out a skills inventory
• Facilitation skills – tips and techniques
• How to recruit personnel with the skills you need
• Achieving a blend of experience, competencies and innovation

  Exercise 4 The skills inventory

Relationships With The Board And Audit Committees

• Board requirements of Internal Audit
• Developing regular contact with the Chief Executive
• Role of the audit committee
• The Audit Committee relationship – how to develop this
• Evaluating the audit committee requirements
• How to anticipate requests etc
• How to develop effective audit committee reports

  Exercise 5 Board and Audit Committee reports

Day 2 The new challenges for Internal Audit

Fraud and the Internal Audit Role

• Fraud explained: definitions and nuances
• Who commits fraud?
• Trends and statistics regarding detected fraud
• Why fraud is probably being perpetrated now in your organisation.
• 20 fraud case histories and the lessons to learn

  Exercise 6 Typical Fraud Scenario

• Fraud Indicators
• Spotting the danger signs
• Auditors fraud toolkit
• Proactive fraud detection
• Use of data mining
• Fraud profiling – how to target the right systems
• How to get the information you need
• The use of data mining

  Exercise 7 Identifying the fraud risks

Reputation

• Reputation Risk
• What is reputation?
• How do you measure the value of your reputation?
• The risks associated and the implications if they are not properly managed
• How to develop a reputation risk audit
• A model for evaluating the effectiveness of reputation management

  Exercise 8 Audit of Reputation and Brand

E-Commerce And Internet Risks

• Statistics about e-business growth
• Management expectations
• The biggest concern – security
• The risk of not embracing e-commerce
• The risks
• The control environment needed to protect your organisation
• How to develop an effective internal audit programme

  Exercise 9 Audit of E-business and other new risks

Corporate Governance

• Why is Corporate Governance so important
• The enhanced role of stakeholders
• Opportunities and Threats
• The options for Internal Audit involvement
• Should Audit lead the process?
• Control Risk Self Assessment
• How to focus the audit attention

  Exercise 10 Corporate Governance

Day 3 Innovative Audit Reporting

Audit Reports – your shop window

• Challenges of audit reporting
• Who are the reports really for?
• How do you know a good report when you see one?
• Management expectations – recent survey of 600 Directors
• IIA guidelines
• The need for reports with impact

  Exercise 11 : Characteristics of a successful report

The problems with audit reports

• 20 questions about your audit reports
• What are the factors impacting achievement of these best practice
• Tips, techniques and ideas to help you score 20 out of 20
  
  Exercise 12 : 20 more best practice questions
  
• Discussion of the implications
• Advice and guidance to help you achieve best practice
• Explanation of a proven method to evaluate your own reports

  Exercise 13 : Analysis of a real report (posted on the Internet)

• Feedback and discussion

Assessment and evaluation of your own reports

• Self evaluation against the model provided (delegates are asked to bring along 2 or 3 recent reports)
• Reports are then swapped with another delegate who will evaluate using the same model
• Discussion of findings/ comparison with own evaluation/ identification of opportunities for improvement
• Key challenges and their implications

Best practice internal audit reports – the way forward

• Key requirements of the audit report of the future
• How to draft a report with impact
• Highlighting the issues that matter
• The psychological problem with reports
• Why audit reports are taken as a criticism of management
• How to get recipients to react positively
• How to write balanced reports
• How to get 95% of your recommendations actioned
• Title pages and indexes
• The Executive Summary –best practice

  Exercise 14 The Executive summary

The main report

• Audit Objectives
• Scope
• Forming and expressing the audit opinion
• Benefits and deliverables
• Conclusions
• The power of Senior management comments

Exercise 15 Individually redrafting one of your reports using the techniques

• Words and phrases to avoid
• Best practice format
• Reducing the number of words
• The power of pictures and graphics
• The need to relate the issues to objectives and risk
• Recommendations and actions
• Management Comments
• Action plans
• A Best practice report template will be shared

  Exercise 16 : Redrafting the main body of the report

• 20 steps to success
• Follow up audits – using the action pla
• How to get management to take responsibility for chasing actions
• Determining your reporting key performance indicators (KPI’s).

  Exercise 17 : Reporting KPI’s

The course includes extensive documentation and a copy of the following: -

• Phil Griffiths research report into the expectations of Chief Executives towards Internal Audit and its future
• Phil’s acclaimed work entitled ‘ Optimising Assurance’
• An electronic copy of the best practice Audit planning model

©Business Risk Management Ltd 2005