Accounting Best Practices, Fifth Edition

Summary

The primary intent of this chapter was to recommend a shift in focus for the internal audit department, from a detailed reviewer of business processes to an enabler of process improvements. This change requires a significant attitudinal adjustment by the internal audit manager, who is may be wedded to the traditional concept of independent control reviews that tend to create adversarial or, at least, cool relations with company managers. If the recommendations made here seem to be too much of a stretch for the internal audit manager, then try just one best practice—the business unit survey—which may reveal that the rest of the company gives a lower value to the internal audit department than its manager supposes, and which may then spark further changes.