Blog: Curse of the Happy Workpapers

In his blog, IIA President and CEO Richard Chambers, CIA, QIAL, CGAP, CCSA, CRMA, shares his personal reflections and insights on the internal audit profession. Here’s an excerpt from his latest post:

As a young internal auditor, I took very seriously the painstaking art of documenting the results of my internal audit work in workpapers. I believed that well-organized, comprehensive workpapers were critical to demonstrating the quality of my efforts, and were the basis for the audit report I would write at the conclusion of the audit.

I understood that the workpapers needed to include documentation of evidence I examined, and that the evidence needed to be relevant, reliable, sufficient, and useful. I adapted to the culture of the profession of the time. And I came to believe that internal audit workpapers were good, and more workpapers were better.

When I rose to the level of chief audit executive (CAE), my perspective on workpapers changed dramatically. As a new CAE, I was determined to achieve greater efficiency in the department, enhance our capacity to audit more risks, and add value for the organization. I undertook a complete review of our internal audit processes, and identified countless opportunities for improvement. One area in which we were woefully inefficient was in the conduct of our audits — particularly documentation of our audit results in the workpapers.

Read the full InternalAuditor.org blog post from IIA President and CEO Richard Chambers.