You can kiss your internal audit career goodbye

Problem: Many internal auditors struggle to deliver their audits on time and on budget. But you need to get your jobs up and down, like your career depends on it — because it does.

Solution: Obviously, you’re going to want to study and implement the lessons from our internal auditor training courses. However, here’s a jump start to get your engine going and keep it running until you get to all of those lessons.

In terms of what your organization values; not what they tell you they value, but what they really value; almost nothing is more important than getting jobs up and down. Implicit in ‘getting jobs up and down’ is that they need to be on time and on budget.

I’ll say it again: always get your jobs up and down, on time and on budget.

After you’ve been on the job for a while, you’ll notice that some internal auditors, and some audit managers have an inordinate amount of trouble getting an audit started, executing it, and closing it down on time and on budget. After you learn our lessons, that’s not going to be you. You’re going to be the guy or gal who is able to get a job up, and close it down, on time and on budget.

Every organization is ruled by metrics. Businesses are provided money or budgets to do a specific job. That all flows downhill. If you’re an audit department you’re given whatever it is, say X million dollars to deliver X number of audits per year.

Yes, every organization is different, but by and large that’s going to be one of the primary metrics.

That simply means that on an audit-by-audit basis they’re counting on X number of audits to be delivered, within whatever timeframe, and within whatever budget; so, each audit is going to be allocated X calendar days or staff days or FTEs, however your organization measures it; in X amount of dollars, generally for things like travel and maybe some special consulting or tools required for the job.

Whatever your role within an audit; if you’re the internal auditor in charge or senior audit internal auditor on the audit, or even if you’re currently just a junior or staff internal auditor, you need to focus your time and energies on getting the job up and down; and you do that by focusing your time and energies on the things that matter; not all the minutia or trivial.

You need to get in and get out.

Get the job up and running, get your findings, and issue your report and close it down.

Almost nothing is more important. It’s what almost all of the metrics measure, including your performance review.

Master the ability to

· get jobs started,

· execute,

· close jobs down,

· then move on to the next job.

Here’s how to do it

When starting an audit, start out as if time is of the essence.

It is. Many internal audit managers fall into the trap of thinking they have all of the time in the world. You may have done the same thing.

You know that feeling you get when you’re running out of time, when fieldwork is coming to end; when your calendar day budget is almost gone? The motivation you have when the deadline is approaching?

Well, you need to keep that feeling going from day 1. Start out acting like a deadline is approaching, and keep that momentum going.

You don’t have to stress yourself out. Just focus on working quickly and working on the right things. Remember the Eisenhower matrix?

Do that. It’s simple, easy to remember, and easy to use.

While you’re doing this, while you’re focusing on the urgent and important, watch the other internal auditors coast during the first days and weeks of a new audit. They’ll be acting like they have all of the time in the world; like time is NOT of the essence. Then watch them scurry around like — well like things that scurry around — as the audit gets close to the end.

Next, Set deadlines.

Here’s what you want to do:

· Set deadlines for each audit objective and test that you’re assigned. This is different than whatever deadline someone else gave you; if that’s how your organization operates. You need to do your own deadlines for each test; aggressive, self-imposed deadlines.

· In addition, you need a system for tracking those deadlines. For example, set up a spreadsheet if that’s what works for you. But keep it simple.

· Finally, have a system for dealing with items that are going over budget. If you’re going over your self-imposed deadline/budget, what are you going to do? You need to figure it out in advance. It might be everything from making it up on the next test to surveying out of other tests or simply NOT finding anything on other tests — whatever works for you.

So, set the deadlines, track them, and deal with them when they’re going over budget.

Next, get your issues during planning, or as early on as possible.

You do this by conducting fieldwork during planning. More on this in another article. But don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. Just have you or your team conduct ‘information gathering’ interviews and gather ‘background’ information. In reality, it will include 80% of the information you need to develop a finding.

I get that the internal audit purists out there, believe that ‘thou shalt not conduct fieldwork during planning’. To those internal auditors I say: nothing. Why waste my breath? In fact, the more internal auditors out there like that, the better your chances of rising to the top.

Next, don’t come in too much under budget — unless it’s allowed.

It’s usually not allowed. In other words, if you kick a$$ and get your work done in half the time, your by-the-book internal audit manager is going to assume you did something wrong, or didn’t do your job, or didn’t do things according to auditing standards. Don’t give them that opportunity. 

Absolutely try to get your work done as quickly as possible. But if you find that you’re getting it done too quickly, go ahead and get everything done, and then don’t tell anyone. Then, simply start prepping for the next audit, or work on applying the lessons I’m teaching you, or do other self-directed training and reading. Or go on vacation and enjoy a well-earned break. I mean what better time to take a vacation than when you’ve got all of your work done?

And when it comes time to close down field work, go ahead and come in under budget; a day or a week, or any reasonable time early, based on what you know about your organization.

Next, don’t let your internal audit manager know.

Don’t let them know what you’re doing and don’t let them know how far ahead you’re. Trust me. It will only cause you grief.

For the status reports and meetings with your internal audit manager/internal audit executive, don’t brag about how far ahead of the timeline you’re. Play it cool. You want to have a cushion in case something comes up — a vacation, illness, data loss, whatever.

Just let them know you’re tracking to the budget; that you’ve got it all under control.

Next while the job is winding down near the end of fieldwork or during reporting, if you know your next assignment, start getting ready to get that job off the ground — unofficially.

And you also want to keep this to yourself. This will keep your internal audit manager from pushing back on your techniques and others from copying you. Got it? Great.

You’ve just finished this lesson early. Now go take the rest of the day off…

Check out our Newsletter “Secrets of Millionaire Internal Auditors — Mastering the Game of Internal Auditing & Getting Rich While Doing It” for street-smarts, in-the-trenches internal auditing hacks, techniques and strategies that you won’t get anywhere else.