Brink's Modern Internal Auditing

CHAPTER 17 Documenting Audit Results through Process Modeling and Workpapers

Internal auditors observe and identify many process-related problems, internal control weaknesses, or errors in data and operations as part of their internal audit reviews. However, those concerns and findings will not be fully recognized by enterprise management unless they are supported by strong supporting documentation to describe an internal auditor’s findings or assertions. An internal auditor can describe a high-level internal control concern in a summary of audit results, but if managers responsible for the area audited only question the internal auditor’s finding, they will respond to the internal auditor with a “show me” type of request. Internal audits need strong documentation to support their audit findings and observations. In addition to effective internal audit reports, as discussed in Chapter 18, good documentation must support the internal audit work.

The ability to effectively document audit evidence is a very important internal audit skill. There are two dimensions here. First, an internal auditor is often exposed to a wide range of information on the business and its operations at some site. In order to better understand control strengths and weaknesses, an internal auditor needs to think of these activities in terms of their often not-well-documented supporting processes. This chapter will review procedures for describing and documenting these activities through what is called ...