In the mid-1980s, under the direct promotion of the government, China's internal audit gradually developed. At first, internal audit, as the spokesperson of the country, aimed to supervise the management behavior of enterprises and safeguard financial law and discipline. At present, under the influence of this view, the boundaries between the status of enterprise internal audit and government audit, and between the functions of internal audit and the functions of the state are blurred, which leads many people to think that internal audit has nothing to do with internal management mechanism, and to oppose the normal operation of public institutions with internal audit. This understanding, on the one hand, makes enterprise leaders pay insufficient attention to internal audit work, weakening or diluting internal audit institutions; On the one hand, internal auditors have the idea of "two-way service", and their work objectives are not operable, which affects the effective play of internal audit functions.
From the perspective of internal audit itself, internal audit is an audit institution established within each organization, which is subordinate to and serves the leadership of the unit. The purpose of internal audit is to assist the leading members of the organization to perform their duties effectively. This determines that internal audit has its own characteristics: internal audit is independent from other functional management departments within the unit, accepts the direct leadership of the top leadership decision-making level of the unit, works independently, acts as a staff officer and assistant, and becomes an indispensable special link in the whole management system of a unit to serve the overall goal of the unit. Thus, the status of internal audit itself is special.
From the work of internal audit, the internal audit work of different industries and units has its own emphasis, characteristics and pertinence. Even the internal audit work in the same industry and the same unit in different periods has different purposes, contents, methods and means. The extensiveness and diversity of internal audit activities determine that internal audit plays a variety of roles. At present, internal audit has two functions: supervision and service. The supervision function of internal audit not only refers to auditing the compliance of national policies, regulations and systems, but also includes supervising, inspecting, feeding back and tracking the implementation of policies, regulations, systems and plans formulated within the unit. The service function of internal audit can be reflected in the following aspects. 1. The role of staff officers and assistants: Internal audit provides suggestions to leaders and decision makers through investigation, understanding, evaluation, analysis and judgment, and promotes management and efficiency. Second, the construction function: the internal audit department provides relevant audit suggestions by participating in the formulation of relevant rules, regulations and plans for certain projects and projects; Third, protection function: internal audit protects the stable development of the company by checking and correcting mistakes. Fourthly, mediation and coordination function: because the internal audit work is comprehensive and involves a wide range, it can play a role in communication and coordination when working among multiple functional departments; Fifth, other service functions: such as consulting services provided by the internal audit department. Therefore, internal audit plays an important role in many aspects.
The proposal of "internal audit is dispensable" actually recognizes the special position and important role of internal audit, and at the same time, it just reflects that internal audit has been restricted and its role has not really been brought into play. Some restrictive factors that affect the internal audit work to play its due role are: whether the decision-making level attaches importance to internal audit; Whether the internal audit can gain the understanding and support of the people around it; Whether the internal audit can get the cooperation of relevant departments; Whether there are high-level and high-quality personnel in the internal audit; Whether the internal audit work has laws to follow and rules to follow; Whether the techniques, methods, conditions and means of internal audit keep up with the needs of social development.
Any of these factors will affect whether the internal audit can work smoothly, whether it can play its due role successfully, and whether the internal audit can continue to survive in this unit. For example, in terms of "whether the technology, methods, conditions and means of internal audit have kept up with the needs of social development", with the development of the situation, if the internal audit method does not change from the current audit method of combining financial audit with system-based audit to the audit method of combining system-based audit with risk audit, and if the technical means of internal audit does not gradually change from manual audit to computer audit and still adopts the old audit mode, then internal audit will not be carried out and cannot be carried out. In other words, what we need to discuss should not be the future of internal audit, but how to give full play to its role.
Second, change ideas, be a good employee and promote the role of internal audit.
1On June 26th, 999, in Quebec City, Canada, the board of directors of the Institute of Internal Auditors unanimously agreed to adopt a new definition of internal audit. From June 5, 2000 to February 2000, the Internal Auditing Standards Committee of the Institute of Internal Auditors adopted a new definition revised according to the new professional practice framework: internal auditing is an independent and objective assurance and consulting activity. Its purpose is to add value and improve the operation of the organization. It evaluates and improves the effect of risk management, control and management process through systematic and standardized methods to help organizations achieve their goals.
For internal audit activities or internal auditors, the new definition is more inclined to reflect the internal audit methods being implemented around the world. The basic meanings of "guarantee" and "consultation" reflect that modern internal audit activities have expanded their scope. The future development direction of internal audit is to integrate internal audit with related needs, procedures, strategies and objectives; The second is to contribute added value to the organization. This is the so-called risk-oriented audit (RBA). Risk-oriented audit should change internal auditors' thinking on control and risk, make internal auditors care about organizational goals and risks, shift the focus of audit reports to current and future planning, and combine current management control with planning, strategy and risk assessment. This kind of audit deals with risks in the following ways: controlling organizational activities with risk management strategy; Avoid inherent risks and new risks after new process specifications as much as possible; Spread the total risk.
In this way, the focus of internal audit is no longer the control system itself, nor outside the decision-making of the unit, but more actively understand and confirm the risk of the unit, and evaluate and manage it. Risk-oriented audit will make internal audit close to the value chain of unit business activities and provide value-added services continuously, which will be affirmed by unit leaders.
In order to adapt to the change of the situation and the new requirements of management authorities, internal audit should gradually change its work content from previous financial audit to constructive risk-oriented audit and business audit, analyze the actual and potential impact of management problems, explore the feasibility of improvement and the measures to be taken. In order to improve the efficiency of the internal control system of the whole unit, provide consulting services for management institutions and managers at all levels to achieve business objectives, and act as staff and assistants for managers to strengthen internal control, improve management and fulfill economic responsibilities.
The third is to change the way of working, so that the role of internal audit can be effectively played.
In the process of audit investigation, the problem-oriented audit method is generally adopted. That is, encourage the staff of the audited department to express their concerns during the audit process; Use positive rather than accusatory words when writing audit reports, and point out ways to improve the weak links and existing problems, instead of simply exposing them; Send the detailed audit suggestion report directly to the front-line manager so as to take timely measures to improve the problem on the spot.
Whether the problems raised in the audit report are taken seriously and whether the suggestions put forward can be put into practice depends directly on the interest and determination of the management, which has a great relationship with the attractiveness of the audit report, that is, the quality of the audit report and the art of writing and delivery. Therefore, when compiling and sending audit reports, we should pay attention to the accuracy and clarity of facts, the feasibility of suggestions, the importance of contents and the timeliness of submission.
At the same time, in order to make audit conclusions and audit recommendations easy to understand and impressive, auditors can also consider using a large number of intuitive and vivid means such as charts, photos and advanced cases to explain the situation and strive for the attention and support of management.
In addition, China's internal audit work has gone through nearly 20 years, and the basic work has gradually become institutionalized and standardized. However, in the implementation of audit procedures, there is a phenomenon that the implementation is not in place or not implemented. Auditors pay most attention to the writing of audit reports. Of course, a valuable audit report, like a scientific research achievement, embodies the work and sweat of auditors, and audit suggestions reflect the responsibilities entrusted to auditors by audit work, but there are always regrets in reality: many institutions have not implemented perfect follow-up audit work in internal audit work; However, the problems and suggestions in the audit report of the audited units are often changed in the implementation of rectification, and even some audited units often ignore the audit report. This makes the purpose or value of internal audit not reflected, the problem of violation of rules and regulations not corrected, which damages the credibility and prestige of internal audit, the loyalty and professional image of internal auditors, and finally leads to the internal audit work becoming a mere formality and losing its real connotation value.
In short, the establishment of internal audit is to provide services for the management of the organization. If internal audit can't play its due role, its position in the organization will be threatened, there will be a value crisis, and it will face greater risks of career survival and development. Only by giving full play to the role of internal audit can the internal auditors of enterprises be transformed from "insiders", "detectives" and "policemen" into the staff and assistants of decision makers, and the internal audit work will have a broader development space.