AUDIT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE solutions

Audit management software is a software designed primarily to facilitate organizations in their efforts to perform and maintain audits. This can include the audit planning, questionnaires and action tracking. A good solution will automate many of the repetitive tasks such as contacting the users and provide adequate reporting so the audit function can be measured, such as performance and outstanding items. Auditing Standards and Audit Management Requirements Audit Management Software. Audit Management Software is a software designed by experts who combined knowledge of accounting & auditing with that of information system. Many audit software, otherwise known as software audit tools are very sophisticated and are designed to take care of every aspect of audit management. Audit, been a statutory requirement of an organization, can be defined as: Examination and verification of the books, records and assets of an organization, in order to express an opinion. The auditor�s opinion will be on: (1.) Whether the books and records were properly and correctly kept or not. (2.) Whether the revenue account, profit and loss account, reveal the correct trading result of an organization or not. (3.) Whether the balance sheet shows the correct position of assets and liabilities as at a certain date or not. Audit management is the responsibility of audit managers and their audit teammate in an audit firm for external audit and the responsibility of audit personnel in an internal audit situation. A good Audit management software or auditing software as the case may be, should have components like: inventory management or inventory software, payroll management, asset management etc. These various components are then integrated and made to work together for system auditing and to produce needed result. We shall look into whether the use of audit software is mandatory or compulsory and should be used by audit firms. The only statutory requirement in most countries of the word is audit. An organization like limited Liability Companies and Corporations must be audited every year upon presentation of its accounts to the auditors by the directors of such organization. The auditor is expected to present audit report, otherwise known as management letter to the directors and the directors must present the report to shareholders in an annual general meeting. The auditor must also file annual returns for taxation purposes. The auditor is not statutorily required to use audit software in other to do his work. The use of audit software is a recent phenomenon. Many auditing firms are still using manual method to do their work. However, there are numerous advantages of using audit management software which has made its use worthwhile for audit firms. The advantages of using audit management software cannot be over emphasized. Audit firms that wants to comply with industry�s best practices and can afford the cost of audit management software, with associated cost of training its members of staff, normally make use of audit management software. Audit management software reduces manpower cost as an audit assignment that can take two weeks to accomplish can be completed within four days for example. It makes audit report writing process easy for auditors. It is a good innovation about the way audit work is conducted and an audit firm that uses audit management software is considered to be better and more sophisticated than others who does not automate their audit procedure. Let us now look at some audit management software as a guide for prospective users: (1.) TrackWise: This software is popular because of its ability to handle any type of audit, internal audit, external audit and third party audit. (2.) Audit Management Software Systems: This another audit management software that can be used to audit organizations like life science and regulated companies, where regular audit is necessary in order to comply with safety and quality requirement. (3.) Policy and Procedure Management: This software was designed by a company called ComplianceBridge. The software is simple and easy to use and it is very good in the area of monitoring, auditing policy compliance and reporting. (4.) ACL Analitics Exchange: This is a software owned by ACL Services. It was designed for centralized projects and control monitoring. Other audit management software are: AuditPro, AUDITworks and Compliance manager, to mention but a few. The use of audit management software requires training and re-training of members of staff of audit firm. The training are expected to be provided most of the time, by the company that designed each software and in some cases by consultants. 1. ISO 27001 for information security in financial organisations 2. SYSC system and controls handbook of FCA for investment managers 3. Central Bank of Ireland – same as FCA 4. Luxembourg CSSF - same as FCA 5. AIFMD (alternative investment fund management directive) - regulation of managers of alternative funds 6. UCITs directive (undertaking of collective investments in transferable securities) - regulation of mutual funds 7. Operational Due Diligence questionnaires per market participant – fund manager, custodian, administrator, broker 8. ILPA DDQ – for investments in private equity. Information gathering not CRSA 9. Managed futures association DDQ for commodity trading advisors. Information gathering not CRSA 10. EVCA – venture capital association DDQ. Information gathering not CRSA 11. INREV – guidelines for real estate investment managers. Information gathering not CRSA 12. HFSB – hedge funds standards board best practice questionnaire. 13. AIMA – alternative investment managers association - DDQ for fund/ investment advisor. Information gathering not CRSA

TRACKER FOR INTERNAL AUDIT, 8TH DIRECTIVE AND SOX404

Symbiant Tracker is a recommendations and issues tracking database solution. It sits on a corporate intranet or the internet with our SaaS offering, and is managed by the Internal Audit department. The key feature of this tool is that, unlike many recommendations tracking tools, it is designed to be accessed and updated by the auditees, who have been assigned the recommendation in the process of agreeing the internal audit report.

Being intranet or internet based, auditees can easily be given access to the recommendations relating to them. At any point in time, the database therefore holds the latest update on the implementation of each recommendation.

 

WHY DO YOUNEED SYMBIANT TRACKER?

Internal Audit departments main product is an audit report, or rather a series of audit reports, one for each internal audit they perform within a business each year. These reports contain recommendations relating to the weaknesses that they have found in the part of the business they were auditing.When these recommendations are implemented, the weaknesses should be resolved and any risks managed. If the recommendations are implemented it gives assurance to a company’s management that weaknesses in the operation have been addressed. If recommendations are not implemented then the internal audit effort has been a waste of time. Internal Audit usually (or should) report to the Audit Committee (sub-committee of the Board, chaired by a non-executive director) once or twice a year on how far and how well recommendations have been implemented and they usually do this by running around in the days before the Committee meeting trying to find out what has been happening. The new combined code on corporate governance (Turnbull) requires audit committees to assess the effectiveness of internal audit departments on a regular basis and one of the key things in this evaluation will be how many recommendations made have actually been implemented. Tracker gives a unique approach which is:-

• Intranet or internet based to allow ease of aggregation and reporting

• It puts the onus on the person to whom the action is assigned to report on where they are at with the recommendation – i.e. it introduces ownership for resolving weaknesses and raises the profile of these issues.

MAIN BENEFITS

• Letting auditees know of new recommendations assigned to them and alerting them when an existing action is due/overdue or updated

• Allowing auditees to update their progress on-line which saves your time and keeps the issue progress up to date in real time

• All parties involved in the issue can add comments or ask questions relating to an issue and all dialogue is stored with the issue so a full history can be viewed

• Tracking issues/recommendations separately instead of having to track at the report level although you can produce a progress report at the audit report level

• Run reports on whole range of combinations including against respondents so you can see where the sticking points are in the organisation

• When you do need to produce a report, you can effortlessly produce precise information that is up to date and also explain any failures or missed deadlines and who was responsible

It should also be noted that companies that have to comply with the US requirement known as Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404, Turnbull and the European 8th Directive will also find Symbiant Tracker useful to track remediation issues. Why not try a risk free trial for yourself and see how Tracker can benefit you and your company.

 

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