An audit peer review is like a trip to the dentist; both are pretty annoying experiences, but both are ultimately good for us. A dentist keeps your gorgeous teeth in your mouth and a peer review keeps your professional credibility in tact. The dreaded dentist Last year, one of my fillings fell out and I […]
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4 Facets of Government Corruption
While we auditors are busy designing our audits to catch fraud, we often bypass government corruption because it is so hard to prove. It’s easier for us to uncover the account clerk’s transfers into a personal account or prove that the executive assistant overcharged for travel expenses than it is for us to look at […]
Are You Qualified to Conduct a Yellow Book Audit?
Have you heard that crazy rumor that the GAO certifies auditors to conduct Yellow Book audits? Well, they don’t! I think the GAO has plenty to do without adding that to their to-do list! But before you take a Yellow Book audit on, I recommend that you do five things: 1.Make sure your team is […]
Vague Words + Mean Words = Insulted Auditee
Have you ever said anything akin to “supervision is lacking” in your audit report? Need you use such mean and vague words? In most audit reports that I review, I see unnecessary cruelty; flat-out, unhelpful, ornery statements that are not supported by evidence. Am I exaggerating a little here? I really don’t think so. I […]
Jello is Firmer Than the Internal Audit Capability Maturity Model
This year I had the opportunity to apply the Internal Audit Capability Maturity Model (that is a mouth full!) to an audit organization of over 60 auditors. It was fascinating, but it goes against everything I teach in an auditing seminar. In an auditing seminar, I teach that the audit objective has to have a […]
How to perform root cause analysis using the elements of a finding
Root cause analysis is a very fancy term for something most three-year-olds do naturally. Three-year-olds ask “Why?” about all kinds of random stuff such as, “Why do I have to wear sunscreen?” or “Why are your feet so big, Mommy?” Lean Six Sigma literature calls this natural curiosity, ‘the five whys.’ You guessed it, they […]
A Pretty Facade Won’t Cover an Audit Failure – Steps of an Audit, concluded
No amount of editing or formatting will cover a failed audit The most common reason that audit reports are so painful to create is that the audit itself failed. The Worst Audit Ever! When I worked for a legislative auditor in the early 90’s, audit management was chomping at the bit to try a […]
Why you should tell your new audit staff everything
I didn’t know what I was doing – or why I was doing it – early in my audit career. I had taken one (one!) college course on auditing that looked nothing like what I encountered on my first audit. Regardless, I was now on the payroll and the firm expected me to earn my […]
How to do an audit in 14 steps
Auditing can get complicated, especially when you are using audit tools developed by someone else. Sometimes you get so hung up in checking all the boxes and filling in all the blanks, that you lose sight of the big picture. Here is how to do an audit in 14 steps so that you know where […]
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