Effective Audit Com Reporting

Focus and Features

In today's Internal Audit environment, irregularities and governance failures have had very significant impact on organization of every type and level. Thus, there is a need to assure stakeholders that organization are governed well as well as risks are assessed and managed and controls are working as intended.

However, communication breakdowns are key in most governance and control failure, and communication lines to and from internal auditing often are among those that fail. With this, Internal Audit should know what and how to report to the Audit Committee by delivering clear messages and not just information as well as developing and sustaining credibility and trust thru face-to-face communication.

Learning Objectives

• Understand and learn how to build credibility and trust of the Audit Committee.
• Learn what and not to report to the Audit Committee.
• Learn how to deliver clear messages and not just information to AC.
• Learn some best practices for visual presentation thru charts, tables, and graphs.

What You Will Learn

The Power of the Person: Face-to-Face with the Audit Committee and its Chair

• Building Credibility
• Sustaining Trust

What the Audit Committee Wants and Needs

• The IIA's International Professional Practices Framework (IPPF)
• The "Push" and the "Pull"
• Building the Communication Plan

Reporting on the Audit Plan

• Objectives for Reporting on Audit Planning
• Traditional Annual Plans and Updates
• High-Level "Focus Lists"
• Reporting on Dynamic Audit Plans
• Co-Reporting with the External Auditor

Reporting on Internal Audits

• Types of Approaches in Reporting
• Typical Report Structure
• Audit Ratings
• Multi-Report Summaries
• Multi-report Conclusions or Opinions

Reporting on Investigations

• Shared Responsibility
• How to Separate "Noise" from Significant Issues?
• What Level of Details of Investigation to Report?

Reporting on Issue Tracking

• Issue-tracking Practices
• Issue-tracking Parameters
• Reset Closure Dates
• Year-to-Year Issue Tracking

Reporting on Internal Audit Operations

• Information on Internal Audit's Effectiveness
• Quality Assurance and Improvement Program
• Budget
• Audit Methodology
• Staffing and Staff Development

Reporting That Educates and Contributes to Organizational Strategy

• Audit Committee "Education"
• Contributions to Organizational Strategy
• Approaches
• The Disengaged Audit Committee

Primer on Formats

• Bulleted Lists
• Best Practices for Tables, Charts, and Graphs

Checklist, Guide Questions, Tips

Who Should Attend?

Anybody who is involved with reporting to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors. This includes Chief Audit Executives, Audit Directors and Audit Managers who regularly updates and reports significant and value-adding information to the Audit Committee will find the course useful.

Participants will learn interactively through a combination of lecture, live demonstrations, benchmarking and sharing of experiences.