TeamMate Audit Industry Articles

Delivering an audit that has the potential to be many months of work in small iterations, one- or two-week timeboxes or sprints, is a game-changer for many audit departments. Here’s why.

In order to successfully target your finite resources on changes that will really turn the performance dial and move you closer to achieving your Internal Audit Purpose, you need to develop clear functional outcomes.

How to be successful in making changes to your internal audit function and through this change how you go about auditing the business.

Five points to consider if you are just starting or considering where to focus next with a robust analytics program

The new ways of working that we adopted because of the pandemic provide many practical solutions to these challenges.

Agile audit methodology allows internal audit teams to increase efficiency, improve focus, foster greater collaboration, promote meaningful communication, and become more responsive to the needs of management and the board.

Internal Audit, compliance, and risk management are evolving at what seems to be a faster rate than ever before. Agile audit, data analytics, risk and control frameworks are just a few examples of the evolution.

Let me explain why it’s a problem being an Agile copycat or someone who imitates or adopts the behavior or practices of others. 

Being more agile-minded will help you capitalize on the collective skill and capabilities of your department – and help you become a better leader.

You are not alone. Eighty-eight percent of audit teams are either in the process or plan to make analytics a part of every audit, according to the recent Touchstone Insights for Internal Audit.

As an auditor, there are specific steps I can take to increase production year-over-year, but with the help of TeamMate, becoming more efficient is made easier.

Being agile is to be adaptive, responsive, and nimble. It’s often said that being agile is the difference between being a huge super-tanker and a small speedboat when it comes to changing direction or course correction.

The choice of which tool to use can sometimes be bewildering, but Touchstone Insights found that the Audit teams with the most penetration of data analytics are those that are leveraging multiple different tools.

The pandemic has impacted every industry, every region, and nearly every profession. Safety regulations and requirements implemented by governments worldwide, and organizations’ desire to protect their staff, suppliers, distributors, and customers.

The term Data Analytics is a generic term that means quite obviously, the analysis of data. Hence the term gets used within the world of auditing in many ways. At TeamMate we refer to data analytics, or Audit Analytics, to mean the analysis of data related to the audit.

Data from the Touchstone Research for Internal Audit reveals that more than 70 percent of organizations are either planning to or are executing an Agile audit methodology. Audit teams have long been criticized for timeliness.

Data analytics are about one thing—extracting actionable intelligence and valuable insights from data to provide stakeholders with a deeper understanding of their business. By capitalizing on the wealth of data organizations have available, Internal Audit can provide greater assurance across the three lines of defense and position themselves as a trusted partner.

Data literacy is the ability to read, understand, create and communicate data as information. What that really means is that as internal auditors, we need to think in terms of data and its flow through our organizations rather than only thinking in terms of processes, risks and controls.

“Where there is data smoke, there is business fire” warned Thomas C. Redman in his book Data Driven yet only half of audit teams are performing data analytics on every audit, according to Wolters Kluwer’s Touchstone Research for Internal Audit

Almost all global organizations utilize digital tools and strategies to make data-driven decisions. Even if data is not your primary business, it is critical to how your organization assesses strategy, measures performance, and pursues a competitive edge.

I recently spoke with an auditor who was lamenting about his organization hiring a team of consultants to evaluate how well a business unit was addressing internal audit process changes needed to better solve a set of client problems.

Greek philosopher Heraclitus is known for his belief that “the only constant in life is change.” Over 2,500 years have passed since those words were first written, and as we observe our own surroundings and our own reality, we can appreciate that these words continue to ring true in every aspect of our lives.

For several years, professional services firms and associations have been encouraging and even imploring Internal Audit teams to evolve their methodology to keep pace with the changes that are happening within their own organizations.

At the last TeamMate User Forum, I had the honor to lead an interactive session with nearly 30 CAEs from across all industries. In this session, we had a conversation about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

So, you have selected your Audit Management solution and now it is time to implement. What’s next?

Software developers take advantage of product usage information to enhance performance and make quick software changes to maximize utilization. These capabilities aren’t limited to just software developers, though.

COVID-19, like no one single event in recent years, has starkly brought to attention the need for most, if not all functions across the enterprise to be agile and tech-enabled in order to transcend beyond survival and, more importantly, to thrive in our post-pandemic reality.

If you have ever met me, you will know that I am a voracious reader. I particularly like to keep up with trends in technology, business, and more importantly with Internal Audit.

During the last two years, the Wolters Kluwer Internal Audit organization has been developing and implementing a stakeholder engagement approach, outlining principles, desired outcomes, and success criteria.

Audit teams, both large and small, often cite talent shortage as the primary deterrent when filling open positions. Every candidate has a unique set of skills, and unfortunately, we may have pass up a person with a great resume if we are trying to hire to fill a specific need in our department.

Communication skills are always ranked among the most important skills for auditors, and working remotely really puts our communication skills to the test.

All organizations, regardless of whether they’re in the public or private sector, must face the repetitive task of onboarding staff members.

To all the auditors now working from home, welcome to the club! I have worked from home for the past 10 years, so from that perspective the COVID-19 pandemic has not had much of an impact on me.

When adapting to the current work from home situation impacting most of us, prior to a pro-active risk assessment refresh the Internal Audit department at Wolters Kluwer has reactively reviewed the 2020 audit plan and shuffled a few audits around.

Internal audit has always had responsibility for auditing an organization’s crisis management plans, but we have never before experienced what we are living through today.

The coronavirus pandemic has taught us the importance of being able to react to risks much faster within our audit plans. If anyone had doubts about the viability of agile auditing, those doubts are gone.

As an Internal Audit Director working for Wolters Kluwer, a large multinational company that’s also a TeamMate+ customer, me and my team are, like everyone, working in manner and in a world that 3 weeks ago was almost unthinkable.

Are you a proficient auditor? The question can be difficult to answer. We have so many areas that require constant knowledge updates.

Back when I started as a brand-new internal auditor, I worked in a locked room, with locked filing cabinets, and the only view into our work was the final audit report.

Doesn’t it seem that the term “data-driven” is getting tossed around quite a bit these days? You’re probably even seeing and hearing the term “data-driven audits”. So, what does “data-driven audit” mean?

The 2018 revision of the Government Auditing Standards (commonly known as the Yellow Book) contains numerous changes, and getting a handle on these changes can be challenging.

Do you ever wonder if your audit analytics program is any good? And, if so, how do you know? Do you even know what a “good” audit analytics program looks like? And how would you know if you are improving?

As organizations navigate increasing complexity and rapidly changing business environments, Internal Audit has to assess its challenges for the future.

The world is evolving faster than ever, especially when we consider the impact of technological advancement. The pace of change poses a unique challenge for internal auditors.

Are we setting the right goals within internal audit? Will the achievement of these goals help us evolve in an age where the pace of change is staggering?

Combined Assurance has been a topic of conversation in audit for the last few years. Now with the pending updates to the Three Lines of Defense model, the topic is even more critical.

Is your department short staffed right now? Guess what, it's not just you. Four out of five CAEs report challenges in filling open positions. If those open positions require specialized skills, well now that just got twice as hard.

Internal audit cannot avoid thinking about and planning for blockchain, that train is coming full steam ahead.

75% of your audits aren’t based on data. Don’t believe me? Great! I’d like for you to go back through your audits from the last year and count how many you performed and how many contained an analysis of data.

Today's fast-paced and evolving business environment requires an internal audit to consider its capabilities and needs to ensure appropriate strategic planning.

Despite an organization’s complexity, it’s the role of internal audit to provide assurance to audit committees and executive stakeholders.

Many audit teams are performing analytics in a centralized manner. Meaning they have one or a few people performing all their analytics and the rest of the team really aren’t doing much and unfortunately, aren’t expected to.

We currently have 5 distinct generations in the workplace, including in internal audit and compliance departments. The focus of this paper is to highlight the younger generations’ perspective on...

Good resources coupled with a good tool can lead to a good SOX process, but a great tool will lead to a great SOX process. Whether you’re a team of 3 or a team of 50, if the goal is to “wear your SOX well,” then incorporating a controls management tool into your process can get you there quickly and efficiently.

There are many ways that companies may lose money through Time and Expense fraud – some intentional, others accidental.

In the past eight years, I have worked with more than 500 audit departments. Most of the people I talk to every day are looking for a solution to their unique requirements.

All expense policies have their own nuances, but there are some simple tests that we should include in every T&E audit analytics program.