Advantages of Outsourcing Internal Audit

Internal audits are performed in an organisation to countercheck the compliance of ongoing processes with the set standards and to analyse contingencies for improvement. An internal audit can be censorious to the profitable progression of an organisation. If an audit is not reporting any problem or the process is going error free there must be a detailed justification for that. The problem for internal audit is that most organisations do not have specifically skilled persons for performing internal audits and other employees are least interested in doing that as this is not what they were appointed for. This is where the need for outsourcing internal audit arises.

Internal and external auditors are two different entities. An external auditor has a specific target like financial analysis and reviewing past records whereas, an internal auditor maintains a broad range of target like financial analysis, risk assessment, solutions, and compliance of processes. An internal auditor not only reviews past records but also highlight ongoing operations and future risk reduction. Therefore, it is important for an organisation to maintain and organise a separate internal audit department comprising of outsourced internal auditors.

All the ISO certified organisations should outsource their internal audits for better improvement of their processes. The outsourced internal auditors are ISO certified individuals and they are expert in carrying out audits. They have better understanding of ISO systems and always provide appropriate solutions for the problems along with training and coaching.

Responsibilities of Outsourced Internal Audit Department

The outsourced internal audit department has following functions and responsibilities:

• It ensures the efficiency of ongoing operations.
• It ensures constancy to management protocol.
• Maintains the financial records.
• Determine the precision and authenticity of past records of an organization.
• Ensures that the operations are according to the set standards.
• It also develops new standards for an organisation for improvement of processes.
• Provide consultancy to other departments.

Advantages of Outsourcing Internal Audit

For the better functioning of audit department the internal audit is outsourced to an independent external firm as it has more benefits for the firm. Some of them are.

Compliance

The major advantage of outsourcing internal audit is in-depth analysis of the operations and their compliance with the set standards. It gives better judgment of the errors taking place in a process that can affect quality of finished product.

Establishment of Benchmark

The outsourced internal audit establishes some new reference points and standards for the organisations and its employees to follow and they are used as a standard to measure accomplishment of a process. Keeping in view the external factors these independent auditors may modify the existing standards and benchmarks for better performance.

Better Knowledge

The outsourced internal auditors are certified consultants thus they have better knowledge of all the issues either on industrial level or in general and they can provide better solutions for those issues, which the in house auditors may not identify. In this way the outsourced consultants helps to improve the efficiency of the operations and minimize the risks and negative impression of the organization.

Cost Reduction

Outsourcing the internal audit helps an organization to minimize its expenditures. When a company hires an internal auditor they have to pay them a fixed amount of salary every month as well as training and travelling costs as well. However, outsourcing helps to minimize these costs as the certified consultants are skilled enough and needs no training and there is no fixed salary for them. It helps a lot to maintain its finances.

Unbiased Appraisal

An unbiased assessment is provided by the outsourced independent audit function and it results in generation of new ideas and proposals for better performance, alleviation of risks and control within an organisation. An external party assesses every employee and their performance and helps them to work efficiently.

Conclusion

To conclude, the outsourcing of internal audit function to a professional firm gains advantage over in house auditing and helps to protect the organisation from present and arising risks.

EQMS offer outsourced internal auditing. If you are interested in reviewing what we can do for your company, please contact us for a free consultation.