What’s Your Audit Love Story?
Under dim lights and tension so thick, you remember that moment when you could cut it with a knife; you fell in love – with audit. It’s now time to proclaim your audit love.
Maybe you met your future spouse after spending weeks together on sharing coffee into the wee hours while pouring over financial statements. Or you finally discovered the reason behind why all vendor payments were off by $200 and realized your true feelings for audit – and instantly fell in love. There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to matters of the heart, especially when you are passionate about your audit.
So come on and tell us! You know you want to. This is the one time when you will actually be rewarded for expressing how you fell in love with your audit process. By posting your anonymous audit love story below, you’ll receive exciting “I Love A Good Audit” collectibles that will bring the much needed smile you need during the upcoming audit season!
But sharing your story with us is only the first step. Audit Trail visitors will vote on their favorite audit love story. At the end of the month the story with the most votes will be rewarded with a relaxing 90 minute massage, because we all know that despite our love for audit – it can be a bit stressful at times. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and tell us your audit love story. We dare you.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Looking at Audit Differently, rather Lovingly
About two years back, come audit season it was time for me to spend long hours at work, skip lunch, high blood pressure and increased stress. Not anymore, not with the automated controls testing solutions we have in place. As the Business Analyst of one of the world’s largest power generation equipment company, I am responsible for security and compliance. In 2004, my team was given a 12-month deadline by our CFO to identify and remediate Segregation of Duties (SoD) violations. Almost the whole team decided it was time to update our resumes and start looking for a new job but then we were introduced to the concept of an automated approach to compliance monitoring. It was kind of like finding your Mr. Right when you started telling yourself its okay to stay single. The audit automation software provided by Approva, saved my job and made me fall in love all over again with our audit process. Not only did we identify thousands of SoD violations within EIGHT months, well before the CFO’s deadline but we also now have a system in place to constantly monitor and prevent future violations from happening.
With the right technology to monitor my company’s internal controls, my wife loves me more, my kids get to spend more time with me even during the audit season. But best of all, last year I had to have in-person meetings with only two of our external auditors to go over details and the meeting lasted less than an hour!! Making the right investment in compliance solutions can help you find the right chemistry with your audit.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:50 am
When I first started in this position I saw internal and external audits as useless busywork. I learned what had to be done with our system, prepared, implemented, and did our internal audit to prove that I had done it. I looked for, and found, proof of compliance.
External audits seemed like the auditor was picking nits to prove that he was actually doing something.
Then something happened — a confluence of management focus and results of an internal audit both vectored on the same process problem. With audit results in hand I gained new insight on our business processes and interactions. I was able to identify exactly what was missing in our process; with this new understanding I was able to revise our process to simultaneously meet the needs of our internal and external customers and gain management recognition for effective problem solving.
It’s nice to be noticed for going good!
Now I can see audits focused on looking for examples of marginal performance or outright non-compliance as a value-added process.
Woo-Hoo!
January 30th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
erp news…
We have very much promoted this type of business practice ourselves and am glad I came across your blog again. I have added you to our digg bookmarking account. Thanks!…