| page 2/final page previous page Section 3. Auditing. A search for websites containing auditing information was conducted using keywords and the Google search engine. Sixteen sites, found during this search, are identified in this section. These sixteen sites are categorized into four areas, which seems to best represent the majority content of the information presented at the site. These four categories are: a. Auditing Standards b. Auditing Guidance c. Auditing Practices d. Audit Committees a. Auditing Standards. This link, www.aicpa.org/members/div/auditstd/index.htm, takes you to a site, maintained by the American Institute of Certified Pubic Accountants (AICPA), from which you can link to much audit and attest-related information. Some standards, such as on related-parties auditing, can be read from the site, without a fee, but, unfortunately, most auditing standards developed by the AICPA are sold. Auditing standards issued by the AICPA are generally accepted standards. Clicking on www.theiia.org/guidance/standards-and-practices/professional-practices-framework/standards/?search=standards takes you to a site, maintained by the Institute of Internal Auditors, from which you can access standards for internal auditing. These standards apply to CIAs (Certified Internal Auditors). This link, www.pcaobus.org/default.asp, takes you to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) website. The PCAOB was created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 for the purpose of overseeing auditors of public companies and establishing auditing standards for those auditors. Established PCAOB auditing standards can be accessed from this site. Also, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 can be accessed from this site. Clicking on this link, www.gao.gov/govaud/yb/2003/html/TOC.html, takes you to a site, maintained by the US federal government’s General Accounting Office, from which you can read the generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS), used by government auditors. This link, www.isaca.org/template.cfm?template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=4924, takes you to a site, maintained by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), from which you can download information systems auditing standards issued by the ISACA. Clicking on www.asb.org.uk takes you to a site, maintained by The British Financial Reporting Council and its Auditing Practices Board, from which you can gain access to British statements of auditing standards. The standards can be downloaded. This link, www.auasb.gov.au, takes you to a site, maintained by the Australian Accounting Research Foundation, at which you can access Australian auditing standards and guidance. Links are provided to other useful Australian and foreign accounting-related sites. A search system is available. This link, www.ifac.org/IAASB, takes you to the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) website, from which you can gain access to auditing, assurance, quality control, and related services standards. Free registration is required. The IAASB establishes standards under the auspices of the International Federation of Accountants. Clicking on www.europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/internal_audit/index_en.htm takes you to the home page of the European Commission’s Internal Audit Service. From this site, you can gain insight into internal auditing and the development of internal auditing at a large, emerging government organization – the European Commission. This link, www.cag.nic.in, takes you to a site maintained by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, at which you can access Indian government auditing standards. b. Auditing Guidance. This link, www.theiia.org, is the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) website. This site has a good site search system and access to a good database of information on topics related to internal auditing, such as internal control. For example, searching the IIA site for articles in their database of publications containing the term “internal control” yielded 164 hits. Many articles are not available for access to non-members of the IIA, but some useful ones are. This link, www.jebcl.com/riskdo/riskdo.htm, takes you to an article, written by Professor Boritz at Canada’s University of Waterloo, on risks that are found in internal audits. Optimal audit frequencies, timing, and other audit decision variables are discussed. Clicking on www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108149,00.html takes you to the IRS site that provides access to the IRS Market Segment Specialization Program. This program develops auditing guides for use by IRS auditors auditing various industry sectors and professions. More than 50 guides have been produced, and are available at this site. The guides include examination techniques, common and unique industry issues, business practices, and industry terminology. c. Auditing Practices. This link, www.auditnet.org/Search.htm, takes you to the search page of the AuditNet website, maintained by Jim Kaplan. Using this search page, you can find auditing and internal control-related sites that are linked to from the AuditNet site. Hundreds of such sites are linked to from AuditNet. This link, www.auditsoftware.net, takes you to the site AuditSoftware.Net, maintained by Rich Lanza, an internal auditor, which provides information on using software in data analysis and auditing. Several articles deal with various aspects of analysis applied to auditing. Clicking www.willyancey.com/sampling-financial.htm takes you to a site, maintained by Will Yancey, which has dozens of links to sites with information related to sampling in sales and use tax audits, sampling in financial and internal audits, and sampling in valuation projects. This link, www.deakin.edu.au/~agoodman/sci101/index.php, takes you to a site, maintained by Albert Goodman at Deakin University in Australia, at which you can find data sampling and surveying guidance. Information is also provided on data summarization and presentation. Although the data is discussed in terms of scientific data, the collection, analysis, and presentation concepts presented also apply to organizational data, such as accounting data. d. Audit Committees. This link, www.aicpa.org/audcommctr, takes you to a site, maintained by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, from which you can gain access to information on good and acceptable audit committee practices. Checklists and guidelines are provided. Legislative and regulatory requirements are provided. Clicking on this link, www.kpmg.com/aci, takes you to a site, maintained by KPMG, which is a resource center for audit committees. Many publications on such topics as audit committee self-evaluation, basic principles for audit committees, and shaping the audit committee agenda are accessible. Survey results of audit committee trends and problems are available. 4. Conclusions. Thirty-four websites, containing potentially useful information to the management accountant on the topics of internal controls and auditing, are identified in this article. Each of these sites can be linked to from the front page of the Management Accounting Information Center (MAIC) website, by clicking “Internal controls and auditing” on the right side of the front page. The sites were identified and selected by the use of relevant keywords, the Google search engine, and the analyses of the sites’ content. Other sites that might be of interest in the consideration of internal controls can be linked to from the list of 28 topics on the right of the MAIC’s front page. Links under the topics “Accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory, and working capital; Banking, debt, and cash management; Employee benefits and policies, payroll-related information; and Fixed and intangible assets, equity, and asset valuation” will provide you information on good accounting practices and procedures in these areas. Auditing and internal control terms are defined, and in some cases, used in examples, under the front-page topic “Definitions and explanations of terms, abbreviations, and acronyms”. And, finally, an integral part of good internal control, as it relates to accounting, is the use of acceptable accounting practices. Going to this front-page topic, “Standards, principles, and concepts used in accounting and financial reporting”, you can link to standards that define acceptable accounting practices. End Please click here if you would like to comment on this article or suggest other topics for future articles. Please click here if you want to return to the Management Accounting Information Center's front page. |
| Internal Control and Auditing Information On the Internet |