Internal auditor

Gem7321

Hi

I'm struggling to understand the concept of an internal auditor. Is an internal auditor someone who works for the company and basically audits the management accounts to add value to them? Or are they independent? So does the external auditor (ie. me) audit the internal auditors work? Or am I and the internal auditor supposed to work together?

Thanks

Bluewednesday

An internal auditor works for the management and doesn't audit the accounts at all! Makes sense eh?

They are there to do anything the management want them to do but in real terms are there to add value to the business.

They tend to identify fraud, set up internal controls (possibly), monitor internal controls (definitely) and improve procedures.

They tend to be separated from the rest of the company for independence reasons.

The internal audit department are one of the things an external auditor will look at when assessing the risk of the company i.e. how effective they are, how their output is acted on etc.

I think it looks like a quite interesting job!

Gem7321

So they're auditors that don't audit? :huh: What a funny world we live in!

Thanks for the reply Annette

jh999

I'm an Internal Auditor :001_smile:

Internal auditors tend to audit systems, (for example General Ledger) rather than accounts. Testing the controls in place to prevent fraud, error and so on and ensuring that there are effective controls in place to effectively mitigate (if not limit as far as possible) any risks inherent in the system.