10 quick ideas to help auditors reboot tired old audit plans

Are you and your annual audit plan stuck on endless repeat? Your boss—and your organisation—may be wondering: “what have you done for me lately?”

ACL have come up with these 10 easy ways to recharge your thinking and provide a fresh take on your annual plan for these critical process areas—and make your boss love you all the more:

1. Accounts Payable: “I’m going to find more than just duplicate payments…and save us loads more money!”
2. Accounts Receivable: “I’m not just going to find out who owes us money for greater than 60 days and collect, I’m also going to see if we have a larger cash flow concern.”
3. Fixed Assets Management: “I’m not only going to find out quickly which assets exist in each location, but also understand if there are any other operational concerns with those trucks.”
4. Cash Disbursements: “I’m going to identify and find suspicious disbursements to help my company manage fictitious vendors.”
5. General Journal: “I’m not only going to identify duplicate posted entries, but also help to improve audit efficiency and reduce our external audit fees.”
6. Human Resources: “I’m not only going to identify all changes to employee master files that happened on the weekend but also provide insight to the senior leadership team on the talent & retention risk currently of concern.”
7. Purchase Order Management: “I’m not only going to find segregation of duties conflict between a PO creator and approver, but also find additional ways to save the department money.”
8. Salaries & Payroll: “I’m not only going to identify payroll payments to inactive employees, but also help departments understand their overall burden.”
9. Vendor Management: “I’m not only going to match vendors with the similar bank accounts to uncover potential fraud, but also help the AP department conduct business with more reputable vendors.”
10. Stock & Inventory Management: “I’m not just going to identify inventory turnover trends, but also help our business value our inventory more accurately and effectively.”