Audit-l subscribers,
Here is a response posted from the CISACA-L. I am posting it here for the
benefit of audit-l subscribers.
X-Authentication-Warning: scribe.cc.purdue.edu: majordomo set sender to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] using -f
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 17:25:47 -0500
From: "Travis Martin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (WinNT; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
To: "Carlsen David" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Cisaca (E-mail)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Internal Auditors' Reports
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
David,
The IIA provides guidance on communicating audit results. See section 430
Communicating Results. http://www.theiia.org/ecm/guide-frame.cfm?doc_id=1321.
I to started my career in public accounting. When I first started as an
internal auditor I wrote my report similar to an audit report on financial
statements required in public accounting (canned report with different
findings for each audit). For example, I would have in every report "This
audit was performed in accordance to The Standards of Professional Practice
of Internal Auditing". I quickly found out that my internal customers do
not care whether or not I performed our audit in accordance to standards.
Although similar verbiage is required in public accounting it is not
required for internal audit reports. The customer wants to know how my
recommendations will make him or her successful in accomplishing their
goals and objectives. The most value added approach to audit report writing
I found is to have the philosophy that no audit report is the same. In
other words, all my audit reports take different forms in terms of layout
and content. I still write my report within auditing standards (above), but
these standards are designed to provide general guidance and do not dictate
specific form and content. Some things I consider for audit report writing
are: who is my customer (who is the intended reader of the report:
President, VP, department head, manage, several readers, etc.) , what are
their expectations of the audit, what is their expectations of the
deliverable (i.e. does the customer want a formal report, memo style,
formal, informal, power point presentation, etc.), what type of engagement
is it (i.e. compliance, consulting, financial, operational, etc.).
Hope this helps. Thanks, Travis
At 01:03 PM 9/25/01 -0400, Carlsen, David wrote:
>I am a CPA that has recently joined the ranks of the internal auditing
>profession. I am looking for example opinions for internal audit
>reports. Through the IIA, I have located wording for reports that issue
>an opinion on the overall effectiveness of internal controls (via the
>Research Foundation's "Management Reporting on Internal
>Control.") However, I am looking for opinion wording for each internal
>audit that is performed rather an opinion for a summary of controls. As I
>have said, I am new to the profession and have not sat or studied for the
>CIA as of yet. Can anyone point me in the right direction if such
>standard opinions do in fact exist? Per review of other books published
>by the IIA, I have seen the following: "Report Writing for Internal
>Auditors", "Writing Effective Audit Reports," and "Internal Audit
>Report." Does anyone out there have any opinions on these tools?
>
>Thanks,
>David
If your organization would like to sponsor this discussion list send an e-mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] for information.
To unsubscribe to the Audit-l list send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Leave
the subject line blank and include the following message in the body:
Unsubscribe audit-l (yourname)
Thanks,
Jim Kaplan
List Manager
