Rethinking Audit procedures during Covid-19

The pandemic that has left almost the entire world upturned, has not been easy on big businesses either. And this includes the financial institutions that govern most companies, Stock exchange, Banking sector and financial institutes such as auditing firms.

For those that have been proactive in the approach to adapt to technology and get some procedures done remotely, are at a somewhat better position. But it can be safely stated that not even the best audit firms might be able to go completely remote with their procedures. Such as in case of an internal audit plan for manufacturing company, one needs to assess the functions and operations of that firm to come up with a concrete action plan, this requires some or the other physical assessment that needs to be carried out at the organization’s office where the operations takes place.

Although Internal auditing is an independent, objective, assurance and consulting activity, designed to add value and improve an organization’s operations. It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance processes. There are other forms of audit procedures equally important that focus more on the finance aspect rather than functional one.

The distinction between internal audit Bahrain and external audit often gets confusing for many. The main difference lies with the objects being audited in both the types. Internal auditing helps you focus on the functional and operational aspect, while external helps you assess accounts, and financial barometer and reports of the business to assess, in lay-man’s terms, the numerical aspect of the business. This means both these audits can work complementary to each other, helping the other with assessing needs and  requirements with a further depth to the data.

Regardless, I think we can agree to the fact that Covid protocols make it difficult to carry out the procedure where physical presence is required. While maintaining social distance, one can only make sure of getting things done from within a distance. Remote work is definitely challenging for many but it poses real challenges for firms that can not carry out their basic functions, such as audit firms.

On technical terms, we have a few steps to name which can not be carried out remotely while an audit is being carried out:

  • Management inquiries:

Work from home removes all chances to cross question employees and colleagues in a sitting, which helps in an auditing process a lot. An auditor can gauge a lot from the behavior of the management among their peers and to others.

  • Inventory management observation:

Oftentimes the audit procedure requires auditors to physically count and cross check the count with company records to make sure. But work policy changes make it difficult for auditors from doing that.

We perform internal audit of nonprofit organizations, internal audit plan for manufacturing company along with further branches of  risk control audit for a variety of firms while following Covid policies to make sure of safety measures. Our services include a wide range of auditing performed for a wide range of businesses not restricted to corporates and for profit organizations only. The experience of years of work and some of the highly qualified professionals on our team is what makes us known as the best internal audit firms throughout Bahrain and its relative geographical location.

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