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Auditing Essentials
High performing auditors possess core competencies. Our auditing courses will build the confidence and competency high-performing auditors require to be perceived as credible and knowledgeable in the eyes of the client, audit office management and their peers.


 

Audit Objectives and Audit Programs (1-day course)

  • Describe the elements of soundly crafted audit objectives
  • Understand the critical components of audit programs
  • Apply applicable planning standards as identified in the "Yellow Book"
  • Perform audits that directly link to audit programs and objectives
  • Understand the tests and types of evidence

 

Yellow Book Update and Highlights (1/2-day course)

      Understand:

  • auditors' ethical responsibilities
  • the general standards
  • standards for performance audits
  • terminology changes

 

Attestation Engagements and Performance Auditing: Understanding the Standards

  • Defining "performance audits" and "attestation engagements.
  • Differentiating between performance audits and attestation engagements.
  • The importance of performance audits
  • Describing how attestation engagements add value.
  • Reviewing performance auditing standards (Chapters 7 and 8 in the "Yellow Book."
  • Reviewing attestation standards (AICPA's Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements and Chapter 6 of the "Yellow Book.")

 

Conducting Effective Meetings

  • Key components of effective meetings
  • Guidelines for conducting meetings
  • Entrance and exit conferences
  • Team meetings
  • Managing disruptive behaviors

 

Creating Effective Engagement Teams

  • Defining an engagement team
  • Including stakeholders to become team members
  • The five stages of team development
  • Setting operating guidelines
  • Insuring effective engagement team communications
  • Balancing tasks and people
  • Comparing supervision, management, and leadership

 

Creative Thinking for Auditors

  • Understanding learning styles
  • Thinking “outside the box”
  • Overcoming writer’s block
  • Generating ideas
  • Using “new” analysis tools
  • Applying innovative approaches to teambuilding

 

Data Collection and Analysis Fundamentals for Auditors and Analysts

  • Frequently used data collection tools
  • Collecting primary information
  • Interviewing techniques
  • Designing questionnaires
  • Analyzing information to develop findings
  • Comparing qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques

 

Interviewing for Information: A Structured Approach

  • The eight-step interviewing model
  • Active listening skills
  • Effective questioning techniques
  • Team interviewing
  • Handling difficult interview situations

 

Performance Auditing: The Fundamentals

  • Performance auditing
  • Planning
  • Data collection and analysis
  • Elements of a finding
  • Documentation
  • Communicating results

 

Public Speaking for Auditors

  • Planning oral presentations
  • Organizing
  • Employing effective delivery skills
  • Preparing and using visual aids
  • Video conferencing
  • Fielding questions

 

Reporting and Presenting Findings

  • Differentiating different types of audit findings
  • Explaining the effect objectives have on findings and message formulation
  • Designing a report message
  • Writing findings that incorporate all four finding elements
  • Writing findings that meet the standards of evidence
  • Using charge paragraphs and topic sentences to organize findings

 

Standards of Evidence and Audit Documentation

  • What the “Yellow Book” says
  • Tests of evidence
  • Reviewing Types of evidence
  • Documenting evidence to support findings
  • Indexing and referencing

 

Streamlining the Report Writing Process

  • The report writing process as a team process
  • The importance of audit objectives and findings
  • The link between audit objectives and audit findings
  • Differentiating between types of audit findings
  • Collecting evidence that meets Yellow Book standards
  • Clarifying tests and types of evidence.
  • Summarizing findings into a coherent draft report message
  • Writing effective charge paragraphs
  • Composing report sections
  • Writing tools that make audit reports more easily understandable and convincing
  • Applying strategies to overcome report writing challenges.
  • Clarifying the responsibilities of the audit manager, the AIC, and the performance team
  • Conducting productive report planning meetings

 

Writing Effective Audit Reports

  • Developing the message
  • Writing reader-friendly audit reports
  • Using deductive structure to present report information
  • Writing paragraphs with focus, unity, and coherence
  • Writing effective sentences
  • Choosing words that precisely and directly convey your message

 

 


Additional On-site Workshop Series
• Supervision
• Communication Essentials

nasba Carole Buncher and Associates: The Competency Company™  is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors.

 

   

 

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Audit Training Classes