Often people are frightened at the thought of being audited. Internal Audit (IA) views the audit process as a cooperative effort between your department and ours. During an audit, IA will work with you to identify areas for improvement.

Your assistance in the audit process includes providing IA with unrestricted access to facilities, books and records, information, and personnel; and encouraging support within your units.

It is important that everyone involved understand the audit process. The steps listed below are followed in the majority of the audits performed.

Before testing begins, two things happen.

• Notification - A memo is sent to the responsible administrator or department head to schedule a pre-audit planning meeting.
• Pre-Audit Planning Meeting - The administrator / the department head and staff that are pertinent to the audit meet with the auditor to discuss what happens during an audit, the objective, the timing of the audit, and any concerns that the department has, etc. Department should discuss potential timing issues such as vacations, deadlines that could impact the audit.

What happens during the audit testing portion of the audit process?

Three main steps that occur during audit testing:

• Procedure Review - IA will learn about your department through talking with employees, reading policy and procedure manuals and regulations, etc.  An internal control questionnaire may also be completed to help you assess your system of internal control.
• Work Program Development - A work program is developed for tests to be performed.
• Detail Testing - Samples of documents will be examined.  Related staff or administrators will be given opportunity to explain discrepancies.

What is included in the audit report?  How should I develop a response to address the issues noted during the audit?

At the conclusion of an audit, an audit report is prepared to summarize audit results including recommendations developed to enhance operation if findings are identified.  Management will also provide an audit response. 

Draft reports are sent to the department prior to the final audit report.

• The identified findings are discussed with the department head or director and others involved in the issues noted. The purpose of the discussion is to confirm results with the auditee.  Often an exit conference is scheduled before final report is released.
• A formal draft of the report is issued with a request for management to respond to the recommendations.
• Management prepares a response to the recommendations. The response should include brief one or two sentence statements indicating your agreement or disagreement with each finding and recommendation, the estimated date of implementation of the recommendation (if you agree), and a separate paragraph if you wish to add any additional information or suggest an alternative course of action to address the finding, or accept the risks associated with the findings.
• The final report includes findings, corresponding recommendations and management's responses or action plans. The report is sent to the District President and the administrators to whom the department reports. The report may also be sent to other departments that are affected by the findings in the report.

Follow up after an audit

Department heads or directors should follow-up on progress of corrective actions for audit findings within their units and report the status to internal audit quarterly until cleared. 

Annually, IA will follow-up with the department to determine the status of the recommendations made for each issue, especially for action plans/recommendations that have not been implemented.

The follow-up may be conducted by phone, e-mail, or in person. The responsible party should indicate one of the following:

• the date recommendations have been implemented.
• the expected date of implementation for recommendations that have not been implemented.
• the management has accepted the risk of not taking action.

Internal Audit will distribute the follow-up report to the original distribution of the report. 

For more information, please contact:

June Orth

Senior Internal Auditor
Collin Higher Education Center
Room 449 (located in the Student & Enrollment Services Suite)
(972) 758-3832
jorth@collin.edu