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An increasing number of companies are recognising the benefits of finding a strategic partner to support an existing internal audit team or to provide a fully outsourced internal audit function. The principle benefits are usually:
- Access to experienced auditors and best practice
- Access to technical and industry specialists
- More focussed use of internal audit budget
- Flexibility of costs and budgets
Full outsourcing
Where we are appointed to be the Internal Audit department of an organisation, our role consists of the following:
- Conduct risk assessments and develop internal audit strategic plan.
- Design audit programs and carry out internal audit reviews according to the approved strategic plan.
- Report findings and recommendations to management and the Audit Committee.
- Regular meetings with management to maintain awareness of for current business developments.
Partnering
Partnering or co-sourcing can take a great variety of forms. Some typical ways that we support an in-house function include:
- Perform audits on specific areas where specialists are required e.g. treasury or IT system/application.
- Provide staff to help an audit team to meet temporary increases in workload.
- Deliver on-the-job training through carrying out work with a client's audit team.
Typical reasons for this service:
- Conglomerates/organisations have concerns on the internal controls and efficiency of their operations/investments in Hong Kong and the region.
- Regional or "fly-in" internal audit function is expensive.
- The company is not complex or big enough to recruit a permanent internal audit team.
- Not enough manpower to carry out internal audit work due to temporary increase of workload.
- Reduce fixed costs through reducing head count to maintain flexibility of internal audit cost.
- In-house internal audit team is lacking specialist resources e.g. treasury, information technology, e-commerce, etc., to carry out internal audit work.
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