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Sponsor News!
Thanks for your support in the past and looking forward to continued support in the future. AuditNet® is a sponsor-supported site. Without sponsor advertising you would have to pay for use of this site. This month check out Paisley Consulting products that address the needs of today's changing internal audit departments. Products include AutoAudit (audit automation software), and Workforce (audit staff scheduling software). In addition a new affiliate BizManual has joined the AuditNet® family. Remember! Clicking on sponsored ads helps support AuditNet®. Technology Risks and Controls: What You Need to Know The impact on information technology must be considered carefully during
The Bulletin was contributed by Protiviti KnowledgeLeader, an online service providing tools, templates, and other resources for internal audit and risk management. Free trials available at www.knowledgeleader.com. For a limited time KnowledgeLeader memberships are available for the reduced rate of $500 per year. Tell them you heard about it from AuditNet.org. Click here for The Bulletin. Seven Year Auditor Rotation
By Tom Crouch, CPA, CIA, CISA, and Attorney During the last few years, many major accounting scandals have been perpetrated by senior management. Permitting senior management to have sole control over external auditor selection and retention is like the fox guarding the hen house. The other stakeholders, such as suppliers, bondholders, customers, shareholders, and non-management employees, are usually denied any input into the selection and retention of the external auditors. A more balanced approach is needed. For the rest of the story click here! AuditNet Job Listings (& more) Looking for an audit job? Go to the AuditNet® Audit Jobs section for the latest job opportunities. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week you have the ability to not only look at available jobs, but you can also post your resume, apply for open jobs, research companies and obtain career advice. If you are in the market for a new job, make AuditNet® your first stop to check out what's available. This is just another benefit of using AuditNet® as your one stop shop for all your audit and career resources. Click here for more jobs! Looking for Auditors? If your company has any audit job vacancies that you are looking to fill, have your HR people contact AuditNet® to post the job and search for candidates. Using the jobs section helps support AuditNet® as well! For more information click here. AuditNet® Product Review
How to Quickly Create an Accounting Management System with Easily Editable Policies and Procedures Accounting policies and procedures represent an organizational control and are a primary source of information for both internal and external auditors. Auditors review policy and procedure manuals to determine how transactions are processed within the entity. It is therefore important that the policies, procedures and forms are well organized and follow a logical structure. When auditors recommend implementing policy changes it would help if management had examples of well written policies and procedures. For the complete review click here. AuditNet® Resource List UpdatesPlease let us know of links that are not working! Free Sarbanes-Oxley Software Made Available
To address the mounting debate about the requirement to
document the Click here for details.
The only periodical of its kind bringing useful and timely advice and insights into the prevention detection, and investigation of all forms of computer and Internet crime. The February 2004 issue includes the following articles: Could Your E-Mail Land You in Jail? Cyber-Crime Essentials of Successful Risk Reduction, a case study on payroll fraud and more. For more information visit www.cybercrimefighter.net Competitor Analysis and Benchmarking by Kastuv Ray The business world is extremely
competitive today and therefore every organization lives by the “Solo el sondeo mas fuerte” rule (Only the Strong Survive). The Strategic Internal
Audit Plan should focus on Competitor Analysis at some point in its life
cycle. This is particularly useful prior to the launch of a new product or
service because if for example a product is designed which is not attuned to
customer preferences, it may not have a positive impact in the market place. AuditNet® Conference Corner Want to announce your professional association conference to the global audit community? Send the conference name, date and URL details to editor@auditnet.org
Industry Audit Series: Gaming Conference
General Audit Management Conference Vendor ExpoFree (or Almost Free) CPEMaking Sense of
Audit and Assurance Software
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The Auditor's Guide to Internet Resources, 2nd Edition! Essential Software Tools for Auditors As I have discovered on the discussion lists for auditors, our peers are using different software tools for documenting systems and controls and audit testing. I therefore thought it would be worthwhile to share some of the essential software tools for auditors that will enhance sharing information and resources. All of the following software products provide free viewers that allow users to share documents created with others that do not have the commercial versions of the software. Download the free viewers if you do not have the full application and then when you find a file shared by other auditors in the desired format you will be able to view it without receiving an error message. Visio Professional 2003 is a diagramming application from Microsoft that helps you document, design, communicate and automate complex ideas, processes and systems so you can take more effective action. One auditor shared: I think the graphic helps those not readily familiar with the process understand the flow of the process without having to read a lot of narrative. Visio Viewer (5.34 mb) took about 1 minute to download on a DSL connection. It took another minute to install. To download the free viewer go to the Visio site. Adobe Acrobat, the industry standard for creating documents, is a reliable format for electronic document exchange that preserves document integrity so files can be viewed and printed on a variety of platforms. Government audit offices produce their reports using Adobe Acrobat and pdf or portable data format is the recognized standard for both government and business. While creating pdf documents requires purchasing the Acrobat program, anyone can view pdf documents by downloading the free viewer. To download the free viewer go to the Adobe site. Other free viewers available include those for Excel, PowerPoint, Word, AllClear Viewer (Flowcharting). AuditNet just received word of a new low cost CAATTs add-in for Excel. Watch for information about this and other tools in upcoming issues of the news source for auditors: AuditNet®! If you have a tip on how you are using the Internet or software applications for auditing send them to editor@auditnet.org Watch for more Internet boot camp tips from the auditing Internet guru! Audit Work Programs Corner Auditors Sharing Audit Programs and Working Papers The following audit programs, ICQs, checklist
or working papers were added this
month. They are in
Audit Documents in the Queue! The following audit documents will be posted next month. Interested in them now? Send an audit work program, ICQ, checklist or other audit template and receive them via e-mail. Your contribution must include your name and email address.
AuditNet® What's New This Month? New pages were recently added to AuditNet® for Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting and Balanced Scorecard for Auditors. There is a new monograph on Electronic Records Management: An Audit Briefing now available. For these resources and more go to the AuditNet® Online Virtual Audit Library (OVAL). New partner discounts are available from Patton and Patton, Cash Flow Guardian and Pleier Corporation. AuditNet® is now partnering with a new affiliate, BizManual which offers an excellent accounting policies and procedures manual. A new free tool for Sarbanes-Oxley is available from AAFAudit
Using Excel as an Audit Software A new online document, available for free through AuditSoftware.Net, plans to help organizations use Microsoft Excel in the auditing and analysis of company data files. Through improved data analysis, companies can more efficiently and effectively gain assurance that internal controls are working and that fraud opportunities are minimized. For the rest of the story click here. Software Compliance Audit News
Is Software Auditing a task for internal management or externally sourced advisers? by Rob Harmer
Software Auditing has been around for years, as a requirement for
organizations that wish to reduce their own risk and establish a
position which gives them a level of comfort as to their state of
compliance. It has been found by many to be a useful technique,
whilst others have found it a real burden. This article addresses
some of the issues faced with conducting an audit.
For the rest of the story click here.
Your Secret Weapon in the War on Fraud The February issue of this fraud newsletter features articles on how to stop supplier stealing, governance guidance, a fraud forecast and more. AuditNet® users qualify for special rates on this publication. For more information click here. The AuditNet® Audit Bookstore Looking for books on auditing related topics? We suggest using the AuditNet® bookstore. The bookstore focuses on Internal Audit but includes other related subjects as well. AuditNet® uses Amazon to power the bookstore so each purchase you make through this link helps support AuditNet®. This Months Featured Book
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format unless noted otherwise. Some may only be available in
exchange for an audit work program contribution. They are also available in alternate
format by email in exchange for a contribution of an audit work
program, ICQ or checklist.
Beginning in August 2003 all new programs contributed will include the
date the program was added to the inventory (mm/yy). This was at
the suggestion of an AuditNet® user.
