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This month check out PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Best Practices ® an online resource used by auditors to benchmark business process performance, identify areas of strength, opportunity, and risk, and study best practices that support process improvement. A process classification framework, qualitative and quantitative benchmarking tools, risk and controls information, and comprehensive best practices reports are included in the knowledge base.

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Getting Started with GAIT

By Jack Bess, KnowledgeLeader contributing writer
 

On a February 7, 2007 Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) web cast, panelists offered practical tips and techniques when using GAIT to scope IT controls for SOX compliance and how to effectively implement GAIT.
 
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 is clear in its mandate that companies annually assess their internal controls over financial reporting. Companies have found that the precise scope of their assessment is less clear.
 
“You would be surprised how may times this question comes up in audiences: ‘Where can I get a list of the key controls I need to have for IT general controls?’” says Norman Marks, vice president of internal audit at Business Objects, S.A., a software developer based in San Jose, Calif. “But if you follow the approach of ‘Where is the standard list?’ you are not necessarily going to get the right ones.”
 
Marks is part of a core team at The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) who have helped develop a methodology and set of principles to help organizations define their scope of control assessments as mandated by Section 404 of SOX.  That methodology, the Guide to the Assessment of IT General Controls Scope (GAIT), aims to provide a structured reasoning process companies can use in scoping the controls that ensure the accuracy of their financial statements.

Click here for the rest of the story!

This article was contributed by Protiviti KnowledgeLeader, an online service providing tools, templates, and other resources for internal audit and risk management. Free trials available at www.knowledgeleader.com. For a limited time KnowledgeLeader memberships are available for the reduced rate of $595 per year. Tell them you heard about it from AuditNet.org.

You’re in Charge
How to Be Successful in Your Supervisory Role

Whether it’s your first supervisory role or your third, your job is charged with excitement and responsibility. Brette McWhorter Sember and Terrence J. Sember, co-authors of The Essential Supervisor’s Handbook provide all the tools you’ll need to achieve personal, team, and organizational success.

Click here for the Q&A!

Resume Tune-Ups

Canned Format Doesn't Cut It!

by Robbie Miller Kaplan

A corporate form, such as the one Caleb is using, may be just the thing for in-house opportunities but, it won’t work for external searches. For starters, Caleb should create a list of key requirements for positions of interest. Next, transfer the data to a resume format, carefully selecting information that clearly aligns with the job requirements. While this is a big task, Caleb could begin by eliminating anything that has no relevance to the job requirements; this is clutter and clutter distracts employers from core credentials. Caleb can save lots of space by setting the page margins at one-inch all around and centering section headings; employer names, job titles, and text can be flush with the left hand margin. Consistency makes it easier on the eye so choose one bullet form and stick to it. Edit the resume for redundancies, in this case the word “investigated;” if possible, substitute with researched, examined, audited, scrutinized, or analyzed. Finally, clearly communicate problems solved and results for each position, a sure sign of accomplishment.

Get a Free Resume Analysis!

AuditNet Adds a New Career Feature: The Resume Tune-Up.

Nationally recognized resume expert and author of How to Say It In Your Job Search, Robbie Miller Kaplan will select one auditor resume each month and suggest ways to transform the resume from passable to powerful.

If you would like your resume to be considered for a tune-up, please e-mail it to Ms. Kaplan. You will be notified by e-mail if your resume is selected. You will need to make yourself available via e-mail to answer a few questions with a tight deadline.  Ms. Kaplan will send a critique and suggestions to the individual selected and a summary Resume Tune-Up will appear in the monthly newsletter column.  If selected you give AuditNet the right to display your resume for the column.

AuditNet^® What's New This Month?

Auditor's Dozen Renewal Offer

Have you let your subscription to AuditNet expire? If so then have I got a deal for you! Renew your AuditNet subscription by the end of the month and I will throw in an extra month on your subscription renewal. In other words you will get 13 months for the price of 12 or as I like to call it; the Auditor's Dozen. Process your renewal payment today as this is a limited time offer!

AuditNet Server Upgrade

AuditNet is moving the Web site to a dedicated server. Please be patient and be sure to report broken links that you encounter.

Pay by Phone or FAX

AuditNet is now set up to accept credit card payments for subscriptions by phone or fax. If you are interested in this option click here!

Writing for AuditNet?

AuditNet Editorial Guidelines

Based on the number of articles being contributed to AuditNet we have developed editorial guidelines for future submissions.  If you are planning to write an article please review the guidelines before submission.  We appreciate receiving material from the global audit community in the interest of sharing knowledge. We are also in the process of guidelines for book reviews and other material submitted for inclusion on AuditNet.

Get Audit Related Books Free!

Interested in developing your writing skills with having access to the latest audit and business related books? AuditNet is looking for auditors that would like to review books for the benefit of the audit community. This is an excellent way to build your professional publication library and provide a valuable service for AuditNet users. A list of available books will be provided on request.  For the guidelines click here.

New Benefits of Registration

AuditNet receives many questions on what kind of audit related information is available on the Internet and where to find it. As a result of my research to find the answers to those questions I discover value added resources that are useful for auditors. In the past these resources would have been added to the AuditNet Links Page (aka KARL). To provide an incentive for auditors to register on AuditNet I will begin loading these links to a special page that is only available to registered users.

AuditNet forges new relationships with professional associations and accounting sites to provide auditors with access to audit work programs.

Professional Association Access to AuditNet Audit Programs.

If you want your professional association (IIA, ISACA, ACFE, ACUA, ACUIA etc) to have transparent access to AuditNet audit programs and other content as a benefit of membership contact your professional association official and ask them to pursue this with AuditNet.

Fraud News Feed

Go to the AuditNet Fraud Resource Center and check out the fraud news feed to keep up to date with media reported fraud happenings. 

Audit Programs

The audit programs section of AuditNet requires registration in order to access.  New audit program contributions are available only to paid subscribers or on a one-for-one exchange basis. However 181 standard management audit programs were added this month to the free content thanks to Professor Andrew Chambers of the UK. There are over 65,000 registered users. A multi-user subscription rate was added to the individual subscription program to the premium content. Organizations that need more than 2 staff members accessing the service will benefit from this new rate. There are new additions to the premium audit programs available as an alternative for those auditors that are unable to contribute material to AuditNet®. Site licenses are also available for organizations with more than 15 users.

The best way to find all the resources on the site is by going to the Virtual Library or use the site search.

AuditNet^® CAATT Corner

Generating Savings From a Bird's Eye View of Your Corporate Data

How to use simple analysis of your company's spending to identify bottom-line savings.

by Richard Lanza

Savings opportunities abound at many companies and often take the form of recovery services and prospective savings. Recovery services refer to historical information that is reviewed to identify recoveries of past spending. Prospective savings occur when best practices or vendor changes are implemented to create future savings.

For the rest of the story click here!

Watch for news of Rich Lanza's new Website devoted to cost recovery!

UPCOMING SEMINARS, WEBINARS, PODCASTS

How to Save Millions July 24, 2007 1 CPE

Access to the free audit program section now requires registration.  The following audit programs, ICQs, checklists or working papers were added this month. They are available on a 1 for 1 exchange for an original audit work program not currently in the inventory. If you unable to share audit programs then consider subscribing to the premium content which provides you with access free and premium content 24/7/365.  For a limited time AuditNet is offering free access to the premium content section. Contribute an original audit work program not currently in the inventory and receive 2 months free access to the premium content. Contribute 5 programs and receive a subscription for one year. (Offer only available for new programs submitted).

Offer Expires September 30, 2007

by Madhavan Nayar

Information Integrity is the dependability and trustworthiness of information. More specifically, it is the accuracy, consistency and reliability of the information content, processes and system. The mission of the internal auditor is to assess and ensure the integrity of the business operation. Internal audit is a key element in the system of internal controls aimed at ensuring the viability, success and survival of a business.

For the rest of this monograph available to registered users click here!

The process of auditing fixed asset records in an enterprise that can be daunting, especially when the number of supporting detail records is in the thousands or tens of thousands, which is not an unusual situation. Two general audit approaches can be used: sampling, or 100% testing of the records using automated procedures. This article describes the latter approach, using three different software tools. For each tool, the steps needed to accomplish each of the audit objectives are described. These tools were selected for the article as they are the most familiar to the author. However, a similar approach can be used with almost any other audit software tool.

For the complete article including the link to the sample data click here!

About the author: Mike Blakley is currently an IT auditor with the State of North Carolina, Department of Health and Human Services. Mike maintains a blog devoted to audit software topics at http://blog.ezrstats.com and his e-mail address is Mike.Blakley@ezrstats.org.

*Data Analysis Tools and Techniques for Auditors

When Sarbanes-Oxley passed in 2002, it forced many companies to take an in-depth look at internal
Accounts Payable controls. Implementing internal controls takes time, but may prove to be a very cost- effective measure if any fraud or leakages are found. The following approaches, requiring some degree of
data mining and programming capability, are fairly straightforward and should tighten up your A/P audit.

For Part One of this article click here!

AuditNet is interested in developing a series of SOx or industry related audit programs for organizations. If anyone is interested in writing audit programs, ICQs, questionnaires, or control matrices on a work for hire basis please contact me. If you may know of anyone who would be interested in this as well please pass along my contact information.

New benchmarking:
Global Best Practices announces Phases IV and V of its five-part finance effectiveness (FE) benchmarking series are now open for participation. During this initial data collection period, there is no charge for participation. All companies that complete a questionnaire receive a customized report.

AccountingWeb News

New SOX guidelines benefit small businesses: costs uncertain

The new standard for audits of public companies under section 404 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, Accounting Standard No. 5, released by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) last month, should ease the burden of compliance for small businesses, but critics continue to press for delay in implementation. Nydia Velazquez, chair of the House Committee on Small Business, told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that a delay would "allow for the new standards to be tested and for evidence to be collected that the new standards do, in fact, lower costs for smaller firms," the Financial Times reports.

For the rest of the story click here! (Registration required)

To register to receive AccountingWeb news click here! (Editors note: AccountingWeb rAuditNet Internet Portal for Auditorsegistered users now have transparent access to the AuditNet free audit programs)

Public High School Teacher Shortage Looming

By Tom Crouch, CPA, CIA, CISA, and Attorney

A study issued in August 2005 said 50% of US high school teachers will retire by 2010.  The pipeline for public high school teachers is not producing enough new high school teachers. About 50% of new teachers leave the profession during the first 5 years. Long term economic development will suffer if proactive steps are not taken. Has each school district begun to do workforce planning related to high school teachers?

For the rest of the story click here!

(Note: this is part 9 of a series of articles written by the author. For links to the previous articles click here)

AuditNet Sarbanes-Oxley News

Low Cost SOX Compliance Readiness Tool
Exclusively for AuditNet

Looking for a low cost ($100) solution for SOX compliance? The Compliance Readiness Tool™ allows organization’s to evaluate the effectiveness of their information technology environment and controls in relation to section 404 of SOX and the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) internal control framework.

For more information click here!

There are plenty of articles in the news on the topic of Sarbanes Oxley. Here is a link to a site that does the research and provides you with links to all the relevant stories.

Sox-Online

AuditNet Career Center

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Go to the AuditNet^® Career Center now for the latest job opportunities and career-related information and tools. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week you have the ability to not only look at available jobs, but you can also post your resume, apply for open jobs, research companies and obtain career advice. If you are in the market for a new job, make AuditNet^® your first stop to check out what's available.

If your company has any audit job vacancies that you are looking to fill, have your HR people contact AuditNet® to post the job and search for candidates.

This is just another benefit of using AuditNet^® as your one stop shop for all your audit and career resources.

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