Internal auditors are turning their attention to strategic and emerging risks, according to a new survey.
The 2016 TeamMate Global Audit Technology Survey, released Tuesday at the 2016 TeamMate User Forum in Orlando by Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting, polled nearly 600 respondents. Fifty-five percent reported having a formal process to identify, assess and report on emerging risks, while 44 percent indicated they provide their audit committees with a regular report on internal audit’s assessment of emerging risks. More than half of the survey respondents who do not currently include emerging risks in their risk assessments said they plan to do so within two years.
The majority of the respondents said their risk assessment processes includ formally assessing the strategic risks of their organizations, according to Mike Gowell, general manager of TeamMate at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting.
“What's more, 70 percent of our 2016 survey respondents say they are either highly or reasonably confident that their internal audit staffs would either identify any major changes in the organization’s strategic risk profile or would be informed of any such changes on a timely basis,” he said in a statement.
In addition, 57 percent of the survey respondents said they conduct an annual audit plan with some periodic updates, with 40 percent updating their audit plans either monthly or as audit work is completed. Five percent of the respondents indicated they are already conducting totally rolling audits, while 28 percent expect to move to a rolling audit plan over the next two years.
Nearly half of the respondents indicate they either assess risk on a continual basis or combine an annual risk assessment with some form of continuous risk assessment. Of those respondents who currently assess risk on either an annual or periodic basis, 56 percent anticipate they will move to a more continuous risk process within the next two years.
