A strong Internal audit department is important for a company for several reasons:
Ensuring compliance: The internal audit department helps a company to ensure compliance with laws, regulations, and internal policies. This can help the company avoid legal and financial penalties, as well as damage to its reputation.
Identifying risks: The internal audit department enables the company to identify and assess risks to the business, including financial, operational, and reputational risks. This can be beneficial for the company in developing strategies to mitigate these risks.
Improving processes: An efficient and effective Internal audit department identifies inefficiencies and weaknesses in the company’s business processes and recommends improvements. Thus, ensuring the company operates more efficiently and effectively, and reducing costs at the same time.
Enhancing accountability: An internal audit department could also help a company enhance accountability by identifying areas where individuals or departments may not be following established policies and procedures or the departments are not performing at set standards.
A strong, effective and efficient internal audit department enables a company to develop strong internal controls which are critically important for a company for several reasons:
Preventing fraud: Strong internal controls can help prevent fraud by ensuring that transactions are properly authorized and recorded and that there are checks and balances in place to prevent unauthorized access to assets.
Protecting assets: Internal controls can help protect a company’s assets, including cash, inventory, and equipment, from theft or misuse.
Ensuring accuracy of financial reporting: Internal controls can help ensure the accuracy of financial reporting by ensuring that transactions are properly recorded and reported and that there are proper checks and balances in place.
Improving operational efficiency: Internal controls can help a company operate more efficiently by ensuring that processes are streamlined and standardized and that resources are used effectively.
There are many more reasons why a company must have an effective and efficient internal department in place to ensure that strong internal controls are in place and it comes as no surprise that it is placed very high on the agenda of board rooms of all successful companies. The internal audit is pivotal to the Corporate Governance framework by providing independent assurance to protect against business risks and assist in decision making hence, leading to an improved overall performance. Unfortunately, due to lack of expertise many companies are not extracting required performance from internal audit and are facing potential significant risks.
Primarius Consultants has a team of internal audit specialists who provide assistance to the boards of companies by strengthening the internal audit function enabling it to offer significant improved assurance and better value for money. We operate in such a manner that our clients not only gain understanding of the best industry practices but also have access to our extensive experience.
Our expertise include:
- Internal Audit performance benchmarking
- Fraud investigations
- Revamping internal audit strategies
- Advising on optimal resourcing models
- Providing outsourcing/co-sourcing services
- Enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of inhouse internal audit department by improving the audit methodologies
- Training plans for staff.
