Posts Tagged ‘internal audit’
Brace for Change, Internal Audit
The Institute of Internal Auditors is holding its annual global conference this week in Washington, D.C., which of course means publication of a long, ponderous study about the current and future state of the profession. This study’s findings, however, point to some deeper truths about the internal audit profession that merit attention. Let’s take a…
Read MorePCAOB Alert on Company-Produced Evidence
The PCAOB has published fresh advice for audit firms about how to evaluate data and reports provided by their client companies. Internal audit teams might want to take note, since such PCAOB “advice” has a habit of soon becoming new demands placed upon you by your auditor. The report, blandly titled “Inspection Observations Related to…
Read MoreAccounting Controls: A Hollywood Tale
Sometimes the importance of internal accounting controls can be a little hard for compliance professionals to grasp, but fear not! A crazy tale from Hollywood this week gives us a great example of why internal controls matter and what can go wrong when they’re not working properly. The tale comes from Tom Hollander, the fairly…
Read MoreSOX Costs Drop; Struggles Don’t
Sarbanes-Oxley compliance costs fell for many companies last year, according to an analysis released this week — although time spent on SOX compliance work actually rose, suggesting that many companies are struggling to implement automation technologies even as demands from their audit firms keep rising. In other words, as usual, SOX compliance is a bit…
Read MoreAnother Example of AI’s Issues
If you’ve been following news about artificial intelligence lately, then by now you may already have seen this: an Asian-American computer scientist at MIT, who uploaded a picture of herself into an AI tool and asked it to make her look “more professional.” The software turned the woman white. The computer scientist in question, Rona…
Read MoreA Closer Look at SOC Audits
Anyone involved in cybersecurity or privacy compliance knows that one handy tool to assess your vendor risks is a SOC audit. Now, at long last, we have a report that explores an important question: Just what do all those SOC audit reports actually examine, anyway? The report comes from CBiz MHM, a mid-sized accounting and…
Read MoreNY DFS Strikes Again on Cyber Fails
New York state regulators are at it again, serving up yet another enforcement action over poor cybersecurity practices that can serve as a quick case-study for the rest of us trying to figure out a sustainable way forward on cyber compliance issues. The company in question this time is OneMain Financial Group, a publicly traded…
Read MoreIIA Unveils Proposed New Standards
Calling all internal audit enthusiasts: the Institute of Internal Auditors has released a draft of proposed new standards for the profession and is calling for public comment on the material. So if internal auditing is your career or you deal with internal auditors in some other capacity, put on your thinking cap and download a…
Read More‘Duty of Oversight’ and Internal Audit
Today I want to return to the Delaware Chancery Court and its decision that corporate officers have a “duty of oversight,” this time looking at the implications for internal audit executives. You in the audit crowd have both good news and bad news here. The good news is that this ruling turns up the heat…
Read MoreWhy Internal Auditors Are Annoyed
Today I want to circle back to that proposal from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board about third-party confirmations in financial audits, a seemingly reasonable idea that in practice has alienated legions of internal auditors. We should take a few minutes to understand why that is. For those who missed our first post on this…
Read More