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Using High Value IT Audits to Add Value and Evaluate Key Risks and Controls
High value audits are designed to provide the audit committee and process owners with cutting-edge, relevant and pragmatic insights into the technology risks and related recommendations in the audit area. The high value audit delivers actionable findings that drive the improvement of the organization’s financial and business systems and operations. In many cases, automated tools are used for more effective and efficient auditing. In all cases, having the right technical skills is critical. Those skills may not, however, always be resident in an existing internal audit organization.
Click here the rest of the story!
This article 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.
Recession Special! Get 10% off AuditNet® Community Sponsor News! Thanks to ACL, CCH TeamMate and ThomsonReuters for sponsoring the newsletter!
Moving Forward with Data Analysis Systematic Software Selection and Implementation Following is a true story, one that proves the value data
analysis brings to internal audit departments around the world: After purchasing data analysis software, a small audit
department tackled its first project by searching for The return on investment in data analysis software and its implementation by the Audit Department was quick and significant to the company. Without the ability to sift through a large volume of data and easily isolate duplicate transactions, the manufacturer was unaware of the critical level of duplicates. Clear evidence of the problem along with research into the root cause gave the company the impetus needed to make changes to basic processes and controls. Today duplicates are a minor issue at the company.
For the rest of the story click here!
Need some help with selecting data analysis software? Ask us for the Data Analysis Selection Matrix Workbook! Can't Make the March 23, 2011 Webinar on Detecting, Preventing and Auditing Payroll Fraud Using Data Analysis?
No problem - you can purchase the last Webinar on CD from Pleier
AuditNet® and FraudAware Release Data Mining Training on CD
Our highly successful Data Mining for Payroll Fraud Webinar is now available on CD at Pleier Corporation (our publisher's web site) for $125. To order click here!
How are Auditors Using Data Analysis Software?
AuditNet
Survey finds that While Auditors are Using Data Analysis Software Widespread
Integration into the Audit Process Lags Behind AuditNet recently released the results of the 2010 Survey Survey Report on Data Analysis Software and Auditors. Auditors from a cross section of industries reported that they have purchased and are using data analysis software. While there is no evidence of Analysis Software Auditor Paralysis there are a number of steps that both vendors and internal auditors can take to facilitate integration of data analytics in the audit process. The first step is acquiring the software and training all staff in the use of data analysis software. In order to do this the Chief Audit Executive must be a proactive champion of integrating data analytics in the audit process.
For the complete summary and details click here!
AUDITNET® SURVEYS AuditNet Past Surveys
Auditors Role in Fraud Detection Sarbanes-Oxley and Internal Audit Auditors Role in Fraud Detection Sarbanes-Oxley and Internal Audit
Global Audit Advisory News Industry News (Premium Subscribers)
AuditNet Leads Industry in Top Two Audit Practices
Until recently, there have been few changes in new practices, processes, and technology to help us auditors to better manage audit projects and GRC convergence programs. AuditNet and partners are now changing this. The top two audit management practices that we are now providing as an institutionalized service are:
For the rest of the story click here! What's Happening Next Month?
The theme of this month's newsletter is Integrating Data Analysis in Your Audits (Technology) and you will find articles and links to resources focused on that subject. Next month's theme is Auditing for Compliance. If you have an article or resource on the theme please send it along to the editor.
Sign Up now for the two Data Analysis Webinars in March by clicking here!
Remember! Clicking on sponsored ads and visiting their sites helps support AuditNet®. AuditNet® Communication Skills
New book series helps with communicating with co-workers and staff going through difficult times! For all the books in the How to Say it Series visit the AuditNet Bookstore
From the Editor!
Free Reports! AuditNet Subscription Price Increase
AuditNet subscription prices for premium individual and group licenses took effect January 1, 2011. This is first price increase in over 3 years. If you want to see what has been added since November 2008 click here!
AuditNet has established new networking opportunities for auditors through social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Google Groups, Yahoo Groups and more. LinkedIn's Professional Audit Information Network has over 4,800 members. What a great tool which includes group discussions, news and the opportunity to network with other professionals around the world!
AuditNet continues building the library of resources with new audit programs, monographs, fraud analytics into audit work programs and more to provide auditors with a new tools for compliance with the standards. We are working on a monograph on Building Fraud Detection into the Audit Process.
New audit programs are also now available. Subscribers may access these documents now.
AuditNet articles will now include the ability to provide feedback and comments. We are looking at a way to rate audit programs as well. Stay tuned!
AuditNet is working on several fronts to enhance the audit programs and incorporate audit content into other software applications. One of these applications will begin offering Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to requirement management. AuditNet has always supported new solutions and has encouraged start ups and other software vendors to enhance their products for both the mainstream as well as the small internal audit functions. We will continue to seek out opportunities that offer the global audit community new ways of doing business. New Benefits of Registration AuditNet continues to forge new relationships with software vendors, professional associations, and audit and accounting sites to provide auditors with access to audit work programs.
Group Access to AuditNet Audit Programs.
Join the other groups such as ACL, CCH TeamMate, Protiviti KnowledgeLeader and the Association of Healthcare Internal Auditors that have access to all of the AuditNet audit programs.
If you want your group or professional association (IIA, ISACA, ACFE, ACUA, ACUIA etc) to have transparent access to AuditNet audit programs and other content as a benefit of membership contact your professional association official or group leader and ask them to pursue this with AuditNet.
Fraud News Feed
Go to the AuditNet Fraud Resource Center and check out the fraud news feed to keep up to date with media reported fraud happenings.
The best way to find all the resources on the site is by going to the AuditNet Library or use the site search. |
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| Our fates turn on decisions:
college majors, job selections, marriage partners. We can
change our minds, but usually our directions are set early
and continue as we live out our days.
If Joseph T. Wells had made a few different choices, your life probably wouldn’t be the same. If he hadn’t decided to leave his hardscrabble Oklahoma life to join the Navy, then go to college, graduate and take an auditor’s job, leave the public accounting field and join the FBI, then become a private investigator and finally risk all his income and possessions to begin the ACFE, you wouldn’t be reading this article. You might not even be a fraud examiner.
|
For the rest of the article from the latest ACFE Fraud Magazine click here.
This article is from Fraud Magazine, the professional
magazine of the Association of
Certified Fraud Examiners
ACFE FraudInfo Newsletter click here!
Coming Attractions!
We opened our search for Web design specialists for our site redesign. If you know a designer familiar with the auditing profession please let us know. We are looking at migrating to the Microsoft.net platform which will facilitate maintenance and site look and feel while increasing security. We are also adding new programs to both the basic and premium content. The partnership with ACL will reap data analytic enabled audit programs. We will also be incorporating new content from other software vendors that will help users with data analytics and fraud.
AuditNet is working with professional associations to provide access to the audit program inventory. Stay tuned!
The AuditNet Monograph Series provides useful guides for all levels of auditors from juniors right up to audit directors. We are currently working on new guides for Sarbanes-Oxley, internal controls and Internet for auditors, Key Performance Indicators for Internal Audit, Business and Transaction Cycles and Digital Audit Knowledge Resource Guide. These guides will be available to registered subscribers. If you are interested in developing a monograph on a contract basis, contact us.
AuditNet® continues adding new specialized resources for auditors. Watch the newsletter and keep checking the Library page for updates and new resources.
Recovery Auditing: Reducing Profit Leaks
Read a review of
Rich's latest book!
Interviewing: The Power of Two
by Sefton Boyars, CPA, CGFM
Many songs and sayings use the word "two": Two for
Tea, It Takes Two to Tango, two’s company, and two heads are better than
one. That last saying also applies to conducting interviews.
Often, auditors conduct interviews without a partner. This requires a
great deal of multitasking. The auditor must ask questions, record
answers, repeat questions when receiving inadequate responses, follow up
on indications of problems, and be alert to inappropriate body language.
While this is going on, the auditor should indicate that she is paying
close attention to what the person is saying (I will assume the auditor
is a woman for writing ease). Unfortunately, in practice, the
interviewer spends much of the time looking at her notebook recording
responses.
For the rest of the story click here!
Auditing With Excel Free Offer for AuditNet Users
Charlie Walker, the developer of TopCAATs provides you with 101 ways to automate your auditing and save 20 hours a month. In an exclusive offer to AuditNet members the e-book is available for free download. The book includes details on using Excel™ audit tests for inventory, payables, receivables, payroll, cash, non-current assets and more.
For details click on the graphic above or here!
AuditNet® Featured Books
The AuditNet® Audit Bookstore Corner
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®.
Do You Kindle? Get yours today!
Ask Me About iPad!
AuditNet® Data Analysis Corner
Pleier Corporation has partnered with AuditNet® and FraudAware® to publish “Data Mining for Payroll Fraud” webinar on CD-ROM click for details. This is the first publication of a “Data Mining for Fraud Series”.
A very popular joint AuditNet(R) and Fraudaware(R) Webinar of 1 hour and 42 minutes of video recorded live and distributed on CD-ROM.
Here are some of the benefits of this type data mining and analysis:
- Reduce control weaknesses before fraud escalates
- Determine cost impact of fraud
- Analyze complete data sets for fraud
- Efficient and cost-effective ability to automate for continuous monitoring/auditing
- Uncover specific fraud scenarios and schemes
By attending you will receive expert guidance on:
- Costliest forms of internal and external payroll fraud
- Who commits payroll fraud
- Gathering accurate data for effective payroll fraud data analysis
- Powerful and user-friendly audit automation tests and techniques
- Using data analytics results to improve payroll fraud preventative controls
- Using meta-data and cross-referencing to produce better results
- Tools, Techniques and Tips of Data Mining Success
- Much MORE
Integrating Data Analysis into Audits
by Peter Millar Director of Technology Application, ACL Services Ltd.
Data analysis fills an important role as an enabling technology that assists audit departments in providing assurance around the governance, risk and compliance processes in their organizations. The technology can help audit departments to conduct assessments on the operating effectiveness of internal controls and to seek indicators of emerging risk. It can be highly effective in providing data-driven indicators of issues within their organizations and help provide a more effective risk-based approach to their audit plans. Data analysis is officially more than a “nice-to-have” – it’s a must. The Institute of Internal Auditors, in their International Professional Practices Framework, Practice Advisory 1220.A2 states: “In exercising due professional care internal auditors must consider the use of technology-based audit and other data analysis techniques.”
For the rest of the story click here!
Available Until March
14, 2011 Do You Use Data Analysis to Detect, Prevent and Audit for Fraud?
Here are some of the anti-fraud benefits of data analysis:
Designed and brought to you by AuditNet® and White-Collar Crime 101 LLC, developer of FraudAware® -- the standard-setting Web-based employee fraud awareness training courses, this unique series of Webinars offers audit, accounting and anti-fraud professionals answers to the key question that often goes unanswered in audit and fraud examination engagements, namely: “How Do We Incorporate Fraud Detection and Risk Analysis into our Procedures?”
Two Tracks for Detecting, Preventing and Auditing Fraud Track 1 Using Data Analysis to Detect, Prevent and Audit Fraud Track 2 Detecting, Preventing and Auditing for Fraud in Today's High Crime Climate
Missed our 2010 series of Webinars? You can now purchase the recorded events and slides.. Data Analysis Hands On |
Sarbanes-Oxley News and Views
Whistle blowing –
What you need to know about the Dodd-Frank Act
by Toby Lucich on September 10, 2010
If your organization isn’t already offering incentives to ferret out inappropriate behaviors, the new Dodd-Frank Act and whistleblowing rewards just might (and could make your company the next public spectacle).
Deloitte’s “Whistleblowing and new Race to Report” offers a very useful orientation to the impact of this new act. From their site,
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has created rewards of 10 to 30 percent of monetary sanctions for whistleblowers who report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) original information leading to securities law enforcement actions that recover more than $1 million.
Press releases announcing settlements by the SEC in the first seven months of 2010 show how large future rewards for whistleblowers could be.
In addition, proposed changes to U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines may lead to a reduction in organizational sentences when the organization has an effective compliance and ethics program that incorporates direct reporting obligations from the head of the compliance program to the board of directors or audit committee.
From Inside Sarbanes-Oxley - All the SOX News That's Fit to Print
Audit Work Programs Corner
30 Day Trial to the Premium Section
Access to the free audit program section now requires registration. We add new programs each month. They are available on a 1 for 1 exchange for an original audit work program not currently in the inventory. If you unable to share audit programs then consider subscribing to the premium content which provides you with access free and premium content 24/7/365. Interested in a subscription in lieu of cash? (Offer only available for new programs submitted).
all have access to all the AuditNet audit programs. CCH TeamStores format. Access through the TeamStores support site. ACL Premium and KnowledgeLeader members access through the respective members login.
E-Book
for Subscribers to the Annual Audit Programs
AuditNet is building Analytic Enabled Audit Programs (AEP) which include steps for using data analysis software such as ACL. If you have a program that uses data analytics and would like to share we will add it to this new category.
- Accounts Payable Audit Anti-Fraud Controls Guide (March 2011)
- Disaster Recovery Control Matrix (March 2011)
- Equity Control Matrix (March 2011)
- Fixed Asset Control Matrix (March 2011)
- Insider Trading (March 2011)
- Investment in Equity Affiliates Control Matrix (March 2011)
- Logical Security Control Matrix (March 2011)
- Payroll Control Matrix (March 2011)
- Sales Accounts Receivable Control Matrix (March 2011)
- Treasury Control Matrix (Feb 2011)
- S-Ox IT Section 404 Anti-Fraud Tool (March 2011)
Coming Soon
- Accounting - Banking (April 2011)
- Building Inspections-Government (May 2011)
- Business Recovery Planning (April 2011)
- Card Process - Banking (April 2011)
- CRM - Banking (April 2011)
- Customer Information System (Government) (May 2011)
- E-Banking - Banking (April 2011)
- Financial Controls (April 2011)
- Forensics-Internet Investigations involving E-Mail (May 2011)
- Forensics-Internet Investigations involving IP Addresses (May 2011)
- Forensics-Web Site Investigations (May 2011)
- Lending and Investments Due Diligence Checklist (May 2011)
- Social Network Risk Assessment (May 2011)
- Transfer Pricing (April 2011)
- Unpaid Bills (April 2011)
Monographs
- AuditNet Guide Evidence Rules for Expert Witnesses (July 2011)
- AuditNet Forensic Guide E-Mail Investigations (June 2011)
- AuditNet Forensic Guide IP Address Investigations (June 2011)
- AuditNet Forensic Guide Web Site Investigations (July 2011)
- AuditNet Guide - Integrity of Digital Evidence (Evidence at Trial) (July 2011)
- AuditNet Guide and Introduction to Web-Based Forensics (April 2011)
- False Claims Act (May 2011)
- International Forensic Discovery (May 2011)
- Six Sigma Reference Tool Matrix (April 2011)
- Strategic Thinking and Vision (May 2011)
Ask the Auditor
Each month I select one question submitted to Ask the Auditor and provide an answer using the same digital tools and techniques that I recommend to all auditors.
SOX 404 Disclosure Requirements
Q;
Disclosure of the results of managements assessment of internal
control over financial reporting per Section 404(a) is still
required by the CEO and CFO of smaller companies (non-accelerated
filers) with a market cap below $75m .
As far as I know, companies with market caps under $75M are exempt
from compliance with Section 404(b) requirement of external audit
attestation. Therefore.. Who is now responsible to attest to the
correctness of management's disclosure? What is the current
responsibility of the public accountant if they find fault with this
disclosure?
A:
Management makes its assertion, which is not audited. Should the
external auditor find an issue, such as a material misstatement
requiring adjustment, that indicates management's assessment is
incorrect, they have an obligation to point that out to management
but it does not change their opinion on the financial statements.
Their obligation would be similar to that if they found a major
error in MD&A.
For more tips go to Ask the Auditor Forum for How Do I...
Submit a question for Ask the Auditor!
Our highly successful Data Mining for Payroll Fraud Webinar is now available on CD at Pleier Corporation (our publisher's web site) for $125. To order click here!
As a reminder, Pleier Corporation offers 10 % discounts
to AuditNet readers at
www.pleier.com. To
take this discount order online and enter the word AUDITNET in the coupon
field at checkout.
A Practitioner's Guide to Corruption Auditing
Exceeding Expectations for Internal Auditors
Kindle - Get Yours Today!
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Release the Writer in You! Looking to Earn Some Extra $$?
AuditNet is interested in developing a series of SOx or industry related audit programs for organizations. If anyone is interested in writing audit programs, ICQs, questionnaires, or control matrices on a work for hire basis please contact me. If you may know of anyone who would be interested in this as well please pass along my contact information.
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