Training Course on Effective Internal Audit

Internal Audit provides several important services to an entity’s management. These include detecting and preventing fraud, testing internal control, and monitoring compliance with an entity’s policy and procedures and government regulation. Internal Audit helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes. This extensive training program addresses the functions, role, and the importance of internal audit for any given organizational structure and covers each of its aspects thoroughly.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course the participant should be able to:

• The scope and the function of Internal Audit
• Internal Audit Activities and Standards
• Various Types of Internal Auditing Assignments
• Operational, compliance and financial internal audit
• Internal audit fieldwork guidelines and techniques
• Risk identification, controls identification and controls testing in Internal Audit
• Internal audit test tools
• Most Effective sampling techniques in an internal audit assignment in terms of sample size or sample selection
• Fraud and Internal auditor’s responsibility once fraud has been detected.

Duration:        5 Days

Who Should Attend

This training course is the best suite for:

• Those who have an educational background in internal auditing and would like to pursue their career in the stated field.
• Junior or aspiring auditors who wish to acquire a deeper understanding of the internal audit function.
• Professionals in Finance who would like to gain the grasp of internal audit.
• Career internal auditors who are willing to enhance their professional knowledge and understanding.

Course Content

Risk and internal audit overview

• Definition of risk & Types of risk in an organization
• Functions of management: planning, organizing, implementing and controlling
• Defining internal audit
• Internal audit as a function of corporate governance
• Distinguishing internal from external auditing
• Scope of internal auditing: the internal audit charter
• Staffing the internal audit function
• Role of an audit committee.

Internal audit standards

• Attribute standards
• Performance standards.

Types of internal auditing

• Performance and Operational auditing
• Financial auditing: accounting cycles audited by the internal audit function.
• Compliance auditing.

Internal audit implementation: fieldwork guidelines

• Information gathered by internal auditors.
• 4 qualities of information
• Sources and nature of information
• Assessing the degree of persuasiveness
• Types of engagement procedures
• Internal audit test tools
• Observing, interviewing, and examining records
• Internal audit working papers.
• Best practices for managing working papers.
• Retention policies
• Communicating fieldwork results and recommendations
• Legal considerations for communicating results.
• Attributes of an observation or recommendation
• Disseminating results and exit meetings.

The fieldwork: risk-based auditing

• Defining management assertions
• Risk assessment process
  • Reason for risk-based audit planning
  • Evaluating risks
  • Techniques to identify the auditable units.
  • Criteria for selecting auditable units.
  • Scoring and weighing risks
  • Prioritizing risk and developing audit plan
  • Methods to generate list of risks.

• Identifying entity level controls to mitigate risks.
  • Broad definition for types of controls
  • Essential components of effective internal control system: ‘COSO’ model
  • Criteria for unsatisfactory rating for control components
  • Methods to generate list of controls.
  • Insights on flowcharting for understanding cycles and controls.

• Testing of internal controls
  • Design and implementation of an internal control
  • Operating effectiveness of an internal control

• Tips and tools for audit sampling.

Fraud

• Definition and characteristics of fraud
• Internal auditor’s role in a fraud case.

General Notes

• This course is delivered by our seasoned trainers who have vast experience as expert professionals in the respective fields of practice. The course is taught through a mix of practical activities, theory, group work and case studies.

• Training manuals and additional reference materials are provided to the participants.
• Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be issued with a certificate.