Internal Audit

Real estate-related assets account for about 40% of global CO2 emissions, which means companies cannot get a handle on their ESG impact without understanding their owned and leased real estate footprint. Joe Fitzgerald of Visual Lease offers tips for leveraging lease management to create a more sustainable future. A staggering 99% of senior real estate executives believe it is important for their organization’s future leases to help reduce its carbon footprint. But without visibility into the current environmental impact of...

Auditors and government agencies have given a wide latitude when it comes to enforcement of ASC 606 and IFRS 15 accounting guidelines. But signs point to that grace coming to an end. Tom Zauli of Softrax says companies would be wise to plan for stricter oversight in the near-term. Since the ASC 606 and IFRS 15 guidelines were announced by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in May 2014, there has been a...

Nearly three in four organizations are looking for ways to further enable automation of their SOX compliance processes, according to Protiviti’s 14th annual SOX compliance survey, which also found that 58% said they spent more time on SOX compliance in the past year. These findings underline the increasing pressure organizations are feeling from the PCAOB and external auditors to increase scope and procedure, as well as from federal regulators, including the SEC with its recently released cybersecurity disclosure rules and...

Chief audit executives have identified risk orientation, stakeholder management and team leadership as the three biggest characteristics of effective audit executives, according to a new Gartner survey. The survey of 114 chief audit executives (CAEs), which was conducted in the spring, sought to quantify executive effectiveness across 180 areas to determine the most important traits. The six biggest include management satisfaction; CAE and audit department performance; perception of the CAE; audit engagement quality; CAE impact; and team engagement. “Risk orientation...

Almost half of all data breaches take place in the cloud. And it’s little wonder why with the massive migration of enterprise operations to cloud environments. This shift has also brought to light the pressing need for new audit and compliance measures to ensure the security of cloud data. Eric Kedrosky, CISO of Sonrai Security, explores the compliance frameworks and standards you need to know. The migration of enterprise operations to the cloud has revolutionized the business landscape over the...

Organizations that want to verify that they’re adhering to a variety of compliance frameworks can turn to outside auditors for help. But how do they know these auditors are above-board? Drata’s Troy Fine explores the nuances of (just a fraction of) the audit oversight agencies that brush up against the compliance industry. A number of oversight bodies interact with the compliance industry, each providing quality control from a slightly different angle. For example: To perform a SOC 2 audit, a...

The past year has seen internal audit staffing and budgets continue their recovery to pre-pandemic levels as organizations contend with an increasingly broad risk landscape, according to new research from the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). IIA’s 2023 North American Pulse of Internal Audit survey found that technology was a primary driver of risk, including cybersecurity, cited by 78% of the 550+ internal audit leaders surveyed, and IT, which 57% said was a high/very high risk to their organization. “We...

The era of exponential growth among mid-tier accounting firms is upon us, driven largely by the trend of top-tier firms pushing to expand their advisory/consulting businesses. To manage the number of audits that could trigger independence impairments across service lines, they have taken steps to shed the bottom 10% to 20% of their audit clients. Meanwhile, mid-tier firms suddenly find themselves the recipients of these new business opportunities — opportunities that must be managed carefully, writes Jey Purushotham of Intapp....

In decades past, independence (a flawed measure even in good times) was considered the gold standard of audit. But Strike Graph’s Justin Beals argues that it’s well past time to catch up with technology and instead rely on transparency as a marker for security audit. Security compliance is a necessity for doing business in today’s world. Buyers and investors demand it, and regulatory bodies require it. Despite the fast evolution of the cybersecurity landscape, companies are still largely using traditional...

Recent research shows internal audit functions are rarely involved in setting strategy for ESG or even in reviewing how goals are tracked and monitored. EY’s Kapish Vanvaria argues that ESG leaders should make friends with their internal audit colleagues — for everyone’s sake. Companies are wrestling with the most urgent and complex issues our world faces today — environmental, social and governance (ESG). Internal audit (IA), internal controls (IC) and risk management should be at the hub, navigating the evolving...

Recommendations from Deloitte's Center for Board Effectiveness on the role audit committee members should play in organizations. Requirements, Oversight Responsibilities & Effective Strategies Deloitte Audit Committee Guide What's in this guide for audit committee members by Deloitte's Center for Board Effectiveness:The unique challenges of today’s business landscape and unprecedented levels of risk are causing audit committees to approach oversight differently than before. From overseeing financial statements to ESG reporting, the increased pressure from regulators and investors has created a major...

Challenges facing UK public services are many — years of austerity budget cuts, the continued pandemic, cybercrime, climate change and more. Ensuring good governance in the public sector means, in part, supporting and understanding the role of internal audit. CIPFA’s Diana Melville explains why internal audit should be top of mind for all public organizations in the UK. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) recently published a major research report on internal audit in the UK public...