Internal audit is considered an integral part of management and a fundamental element of corporate governance. The dynamic changes of the world economy, the new tools and the new directions of internal audit development are useful for management and give added value to organizations. These factors have given rise to a new image of the auditor, a figure endowed with a wide range of skills and good practices adapted to the needs of the operating context. They have also increased the audit risk factors that need to be dealt with.

A Renewed Focus on Audit Risks

There is a renewed focus on learning what can go wrong with audits and preventing it from happening due to scandals like Enron, where even the audits were faulty and completely missed major issues in the organization. After the financial scandals, the internal auditor’s task was to restore confidence and autonomy, guaranteeing investors and shareholders the transparency of financial data and the compatibility of the control mechanisms used with the strategic development of the organization. Businesses have realized the true importance of the role auditors play and how important it is to ensure the integrity of the audit process.

The extension of the scope of internal audits from strictly financial to that of ethics and consultancy, with a position of absolute respect in the management of the company, showed the need for an increase in the effectiveness of the audit services. The internal audit of the 21st century should address emerging economic problems and new risks, leveraging the economic and social sciences, exploiting the discoveries of theory and management methodology in order to build an internal audit as a new tool for management. That requires better audit risk analysis.

Increasing audit efficiency

The important thing to note is that in most financial scandals the auditors were not found to be involved in the frauds and scams. There were many in-depth investigations and most of them concluded that the auditors simply hadn’t performed the due diligence that they should have. The risk here is that auditors may become too comfortable with the data that is provided by the people who are being audited. If we want to find out why this happens, we need to look at how difficult it can be to carry out audits efficiently and why audit risk tools are needed.


%%POST-CONTENT-DEMO-BANNER%%

Auditing is a complicated task which involves a lot of work. A lot of the work that does into audits is administrative. Carrying out the audit is just a part of the whole process. Audits first have to be planned, then scheduled, then they have to be carried out, then their results have to be collected, and finally the audit is completed. However, this is still not the end of the audit process. The next step is to carry out corrective and preventative actions. A short time later the auditors also need to perform follow-ups. The problem is that the administrative parts of the process take up too much time of the audit, which increases audit risks.

If we want to minimize audit risk levels, we need to make sure that our auditors have the tools and technology they need. Audit management tools and software automate the administrative, menial, and repetitive parts of audit management. This allows auditors to dedicate their time to carrying out the audit, audit analysis, and follow ups. They can spend the extra time they have on going in-depth for the audit and uncovering insights which they simply did not have the time to do before.

If you want to minimize audit risks in your organization and want to see if there is a better way to manage every step of the audit lifecycle process, then you should look at the Predict360 Audit and Assessments module. It includes audit calendars, organization-wide audit visibility, report generation, a and much more. Get in touch for a demo and more details