Internal Audit Reports Post Sarbanes-Oxley: A Guide to Process-Driven Reporting

PREFACE

From foots and ticks to dots and coms, internal auditors have witnessed and communicated headline-producing changes in the way business is conducted around the world.

Twenty-first-century auditors continue to serve as front-line reporters for what is happening; they are the knowledgeable insiders who amass and analyze financial and operational data, synthesize what they observe, and articulate their findings. And the recommendations they make serve as guideposts to keep business executives and audit committees fully informed—and out of jail.

In the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley, internal audit reports—the primary mode of communication—are more important than ever. In addition to being carefully organized and crisply written, reports need to connect the financial dots and relate specialized chunks of information to each other, to any potential risk, and to the company's overall operations and governance. Increasing automation and outsourcing also make it imperative that those dots are systematically connected.

The reports need to adhere to the same process that governs the audit itself. Process-driven reporting will make the difference between core dumps of data and well-structured reports that precisely point out the relationships between findings, conclusions, and recommendations—the kind of reports financial executives can attest to with confidence.

In this book, Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers, Audit Committee members, Chief Audit Executives, Controllers, ...