Power tools: 2002 audit software usage survey; three avid users talk about how they use top-rated software products to automate their most important tasks. Plus, the results from the IIA's annual poll of members' application preferences are revealed

Internal Auditor, August, 2002 by Christy Chapman

COORDINATING INITIAL AUDIT STEPS

TeamMate holds the standardized, structured format that we use to perform all of our audit work from start to finish. Both a pre-formatted engagement letter and the opening conference agenda are part of TeamMate, so that each auditor knows specifically what should be covered in these documents. The auditor can customize the letter or agenda based on the audit, but there is some basic information that we want to make sure every auditee has. Our workpaper software helps us ensure that all auditors are following the same format and communicating with clients in the same way.

The planning phase of the audit is also done using TeamMate, from setting the scope and objectives to establishing the audit program. Using the software, we've established a standard library of audit information from which auditors may select basic information and structure, including audit steps if we've performed that type of audit before. This electronic library facilitates our use of established procedures and best practices over and over again. Sharing information this way is much easier than tracking down the last person who performed the audit and asking him or her for the list of audit steps.

MANAGING THE AUDIT PROCESS

We conduct our audits with TeamMate in one of two ways. We can place the TeamMate file on a server, which allows everybody on the team to access the audit and add their information as they complete their audit steps. Or, we can carry out a distributed audit, where the auditor-in-charge has the master copy of the audit in the field, and the auditors create replicas of the steps they are to perform. Then, after the auditors have completed all of the audit steps, the information is merged back into the master file. In both cases, as updates are made to the file, it is replicated or sent to our international server in Arkansas, which enables everyone across the globe to access it in real time.

As we encounter exceptions, we note them, share them with the client if we need to, and then document them in TeamMate. After the exceptions have been agreed upon or settled with the client, we set any necessary follow-up rules, which are entered into TeamMate as well.

Finally, we use a standard reporting format in TeamMate to make sure that our findings are documented correctly and uniformly. Every audit report covers the project's scope; objectives; any general information or background material, depending on the audit; and findings. The software is set up to automatically pull all of the exception information, as well as the scope and objectives, into the report from the areas where they were originally entered. The only data we have to add is the narrative for the background information section.

BUMPS THE ROAD

Although the software now runs quite smoothly on our system, we did encounter some challenges after initial implementation, such as ensuring we had enough hardware firepower to run the package. Our greatest problem, however, was not with the program itself, but rather with our approach to implementing it. In hindsight, we should have spent more time defining our processes, methodologies, and standards before we began using the software. We had to decide such things as how many parts our findings would contain, what those parts would be called, and how many sections we wanted in each report. We really didn't spend enough time getting everyone to agree on how we were going to work, especially considering we were rolling the tool out to nine different countries. We should have had more extensive discussions of these issues up front and developed common procedures based on input from the various countries. Then, we could have tweaked or customized the software to support those processes.