Richard Chamber, the former CEO and President of the IIA, has moved on to a new stage in his professional career. That includes a new consulting firm, Richard F. Chambers and Associates, which is where he now shares his blog posts.
His latest is Internal Auditors: It’s What You Say – AND How You Say It!
As you might expect, Richard’s comments are valuable and merit our attention.
I think there is more to be said.
In particular, we need to understand why we are writing an audit report in the first place.
I have a fairly lengthy chapter on this in my seminal book, Auditing that Matters – which I strongly recommend for every internal auditor (even though I wrote it).
Here are just a few of the main points:
- It is critical not only to audit what matters, but to communicate what matters…. It is not about communicating what matters to the auditor. It is about communicating what matters to each of our stakeholders – in operating management, senior and executive management, on the board, and others as appropriate (e.g., regulators and external auditors).
- Our goal is not to find fault[1]. It is to help management improve their processes, where necessary, through our advice and insight.
- We need to remember that the task is not to write an audit report. It is to communicate… We need to communicate in a way…
