Effective internal audit reporting is vital for organizational transparency and risk management. This article outlines ten key strategies to enhance your internal audit reports, ensuring they deliver clear, actionable insights to stakeholders.
Here Are My Top 10 Tips for Internal Audit Program Reporting
1. Report Summary
Including key conclusions of your report on the front page can be helpful for those reviewing your report, especially if your report is more than a few pages. Generally, it is appropriate to include updates on high-risk findings, results of projects addressing high-risk areas, whether projects were generally executed according to plan, and whether there are any other critical updates to be aware of.
2. Measuring Internal Audit Performance
Holding the Internal Audit team accountable by including key KPIs as part of the report. This transparency improves trust with management and the Audit Committee. Think about including measurements such as percentage of audits completed on schedule, number of unplanned or accelerated projects, average management feedback score, average feedback score for “IA added value”, IT versus non-IT staff, team turnover, current internal audit headcount needs, and number of projects quality reviewed.
3. Dashboard
The dashboard can include information such as remediation trends, control certification trends, status of high-impact issues, open or overdue issues for key risk areas (such as SOX), high-impact issues by region or function, overdue/repeat issues by region or function, total issues identified, etc.
4. Focused Audit Results of High-Risk Areas
Include recent results and/or trends of results for focus areas such as SOX, PCI, FCPA, or other risk areas that are most pertinent to the organization.
5. Results of Key Reviews
If there are results from reviews that should be discussed, then use charts and colors to convey the appropriate information efficiently. Some teams call these “30-second reports”.
6. Other Notable Projects
Consider including results of any additional notable projects on a single page with notes such as “no significant findings to report.”
7. Team Overview
Including an organizational chart of the internal audit team along with relevant certifications can be helpful in identifying gaps or opportunities to strengthen the team.
8. Team Update
Audit committees may appreciate understanding when team members leave or are starting with the team.
9. Rating and Escalation Criteria
If there are certain frameworks or criteria used for reporting, for example, “high”, “medium”, and “low”, then include definitions and information about how different ratings impact escalation and reporting.
10. Annual Reporting
This section includes multiple points:
- Technology Enablement: Informing the Audit Committee of the technologies being used to enable the audit program can help improve support for the team and further investments in technology.
- Mission & Purpose: Periodically revisiting IA’s mission and purpose can help improve alignment.
- Internal Audit Objectives: Discussion of IA objectives can help improve support and alignment with management and the Audit Committee.
- Alignment with Top Risks: Showing how the internal audit plan and specific projects align with the organization’s top risks can encourage feedback and discussion and result in the team being asked to help in new risk areas.
Strengthen Internal Audit With Opal
Opal can facilitate the most critical components of any high-performing internal audit program. Contact us if you would like to learn more.
