Internal Audit Services focuses on managing business and operational risks and identifying operational and profit improvement opportunities. The internal audit function is currently undergoing significant change, from being reactive, compliance-oriented, and historically focused to proactively anticipating business risk.
At Integrity Reliance (IR) our Internal Audit Services spans from preparing risk based annual audit plans to executing and reporting on the internal audits using a systematic, independent, and documented approach to examining business controls, physical and system security, and processes against best practices, contractual obligations, and established policies, procedures, and other requirements.
OUTSOURCED AND CO-SOURCED INTERNAL AUDITS
Co-sourcing or outsourcing internal audit work can reduce costs, free up capital, and enhance your ability to focus on what you do best. It can also provide you with the ability to tap into specific skill sets, industry knowledge and global resources on an ‘as needed’ basis.
We provide co-sourced Internal Audit services to supplement existing in-house Internal Audit function, or help the Chief Audit Executive to execute certain areas of the audit plan. We also provide full Internal Audit outsource solutions across a variety of industry sectors. Under this partnership model, we report directly to the Audit Committee to ensure complete independence and objectivity.
Our tailored approach:
- Allows our clients to execute their audit plan utilizing highly qualified, expert auditors skilled in an extremely wide range of areas.
- Allows clients to stay focused on their core business and strategic plan.
- Eliminates the need to invest in expensive audit tools.
- Eliminates the need for training and managing a costly in house function.
- Provides the flexibility in deploying highly skilled auditors on a global basis who understand local cultures, customs, related laws and regulatory requirements.
- Provides complete assurance regarding independence and objectivity over the Internal Audit function.
ESTABLISHING INTERNAL AUDIT FUNCTION
With organizations being driven to do more with less, the internal audit (IA) function has become a prime candidate for strategic sourcing. This can include outsourcing the entire function or just certain critical elements. Like many other functions, IA has become highly sophisticated and virtually a business in itself. Achieving effective IA capabilities requires a significant level of investment in skilled resources, methods, training and technical infrastructure.
Below is the list few activities undertaken to establish an internal audit department, including finding a highly qualified Chief Audit Executive, defining the internal audit department’s mission, developing the audit charter, staffing the department, creating an overall audit strategy, and assessing the department’s effectiveness.
- Establish a vision and the objectives for your Internal Audit Function.
- Establish a governance process – including developing the Audit Committee Charter, Internal Audit Strategy, Internal Audit Manual, Reporting mechanisms, Communication channels and Protocol.
- Develop a risk assessment process and rolling Internal Audit Plan.
- Assist you in recruiting or training Internal Audit team.
- Assist you with the overall Internal Audit project framework, including the implementation of audit tools, project framework, project scoping, fieldwork and reporting.
- Provide knowledge transfer to your staff so they can successfully execute your internal audit plan.
BUSINESS PROCESS REVIEW & IMPROVEMENTS
- Streamline Processes – Identify opportunities to streamline transaction processing by reducing cycle times and eliminating rework.
- Technology – Identify opportunities to leverage technology solutions to enhance processes and controls. Some examples include identifying opportunities integrating multiple besopke processing systems.
- Best Practices & Benchmarking – Identify opportunities to implement best practice solutions or provide benchmarks of current processes against industry norms.
- Measurement Systems – Identify opportunities to implement or improve management measurement and monitoring tools, including defining key performance indicators and executive dashboard.
EXTERNAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT REVIEWS
Our team members have accumulated extensive knowledge of leading approaches, best practices, tools and methodologies to help internal audit functions run more effectively, efficiently and in conformance with Institute of Internal Auditors’ quality standards. We put this experience to work for you through a set of solutions designed to increase the confidence of your internal audit function to contribute to improving the effectiveness of your organization’s risk management, control, and governance processes.
Our team of professionals will help you with:
- Establishing a Quality Improvement Program in conformance with Institute of Internal Auditors Standards.
- Conducting an External Assessment of your Internal Audit Function in compliance with IIA Standards.
- Conducting an External Validation for your Internal Audit Function’s Self-Assessment.
- Assistance in developing new Internal Audit functions.
- Assistance in transforming Internal Audit departments into more mature functions.
- Assisting with best practices for Internal Audit department administration.
- Outsourcing and co-sourcing of Internal Audit functions.
- Tools and methodologies to assist in Internal Audit department operations.
CONTRACT COMPLIANCE SERVICES
Business unit executives, purchasing and legal teams spend a lot of time and company resources in developing good contracts, agreements and statements of work. However, ensuring that vendors comply with contractual terms is difficult. When these activities are ignored, there could be adverse impact on operations, and financial losses may increase due to contractors’ non-compliance with contractual terms and conditions.
Contracts are critical legal instruments for companies of all sizes in virtually every sector. Although sourcing, negotiating, and drafting contracts can be quite a tedious process, contracting does not end once the agreement is put to paper. In fact, the real work begins once all parties have signed the final documents. To ensure that the terms and conditions of a contract are being performed as stipulated, it is crucial to conduct Contract Compliance audits. This may be done at a micro level (i.e., by contract) or at a macro level (i.e., a review of the entire portfolio).
Contract management best practices recommend regular Contract Compliance audits. However, unlike financial statement audits, which typically take place annually, contract reviews occur more frequently. For example, an audit schedule for engineering and construction contracts often include monthly payment audits, as well as a quarterly, semi-annual or annual audit for longer projects. An effective Contract Compliance Audit increases the probability to identify mistakes that otherwise could result in wasteful spending and cost overruns.
Our team of professional will help you with:
- Ensuring integrity of the post award contract administration process.
- Availability of standard contract templates approved by Legal Counsel and process to approve changes.
- Review and approval of additions or variations orders.
- Identification of compliance variations and / or exposures, including frequencies.
- Changes in compliance rules, policies or terms to reflect changing trends, market conditions or opportunities.
- Management reporting and change initiatives.
IT AUDITS ( APPLICATION CONTROL & ASSURANCE)
Are you confident that your IT supports your business in fulfilling its strategic objectives? Is your data secure, reliable, accurate, appropriate, complete, and available when needed to enable effective business decisions? Are your IT application systems well secured, and are they performing as required in implementing business rules? Does your technology infrastructure support achievement of business objectives?
In today’s business world, technology systems are ubiquitous and often at the heart of value creation, production and distribution. But the risks of failure can be high, with the constant challenge being to harness the power of IT while avoiding the risks.
We conduct many types of IT audits such as –
- Organizational IT audits (management control over IT).
- Technical IT audits (infrastructure, data centres, data communication).
- Application IT audit (business, financial, operational, development implementation).
- IT audits (specification/ requirements, design, development, and post-implementation phases).
- Compliance IT audits involving national or international standards.
- reviewing IT governance frameworks, reviewing IT-business strategic alignments, assessing the value to the business of investments made in IT.
- comprehensive reviews to ensure your IT application software adheres to your business rules in the flow and accuracy in processing.
- undertake operating systems and database security reviews.
- review the effectiveness and reliability of the backup.
- evaluate the appropriateness of IT maintenance contracts.
Our Audit and Assurance consultants often specialize in particular industries and bring an in-depth knowledge of that industry, utilizing years of experience to support an internal audit function within an organization.
PROJECT & CONTRACT AUDIT
Our Projects and Contract Audit services help our clients mitigate their contractual risks, and benefit from a variety of cost saving measures.
Our approach to conduct Projects and Construction Audit is to –
- Evaluate construction contracts to understand obligations during design and construction phase, penalties, incentives, rights and responsibilities.
- Identify opportunities for recovery through matching contractor expenses to terms and deliverables of construction contacts.
- Review presented progress payment invoices for duplication or out-of-scope activity.
- Develop management plans to maintain ongoing cost and schedule in line with contractual obligations.
- Establish benchmarking to continuously evaluate construction project performance indicators against the contract in a timely and efficient manner.
FOOD SAFETY MANAGEMENT AUDIT
How sure are you that your unit fully complies with current food hygiene regulations? Don’t leave it to guesswork! Our team of experts, trained auditors will conduct a third-party assessment (called a Foods Safety Management Audit or Food Safety Audit or Food Hygiene Audit) of your conditions, premises, practices and even food safety culture to ensure you are compliant.
Food Safety Auditing plays a fundamental role in the independent verification of standards. A Food Safety Management Audit aimed at the identification of food safety risks and to ensure that food and beverages offered to customers are safe for consumption.
Integrity Reliance (IR) has the relevant competent auditors to conduct Food Safety Management Audits, where they validate processes against regulatory requirements, relevant standards, International trends as well as customer specific standards. Integrity Reliance provides Food Safety and Hygiene Auditing services in the following sectors:
- Hospitality (Hotels, B&B, Resorts)
- Catering (Canteens, Staff Facilities)
- Schools and Campuses
- Restaurants
- Retail
A few benefits of having internal Food Safety Management Audits are:
- Identifying food safety risks and areas of improvements.
- Promoting responsibility and accountability in employees.
- Improving communication and feedback to management.
- Verifying management commitment.
- Protecting the business reputation.
- Fewer health risks.
- Demonstrating dedication to customer safety.
- Greater customer confidence.
FACILITY MANAGEMENT AUDIT
A facility audit (or inventory) is a comprehensive review of a facility’s assets. Facility audits are a standard method for establishing baseline information about the components, policies, and procedures of a new or existing facility. An audit is a way of determining the “status” of the facility at a given time-that is, it provides a snapshot of how the various systems and components are operating. A primary objective of a facility audit is to measure the value of an aging asset relative to the cost of replacing that asset. Thus, facilities audits are a tool for projecting future maintenance costs.
Our facility audit is accomplished by assessing buildings, grounds, equipments, documenting the findings, and recommending service options to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and save money.
Our name is based on integrity, we are honest and follow top level of ethics, we don’t offer, neither accept any kind of bribes & we do the right thing in all circumstances even if no one is watching.
We are passionate about our services, we strongly desire for excellence and provide high quality work, beyond our clients expectations. We do our best to accomplish our vision and mission with excellence.
We are more trust worthy because we show accountability towards our commitments and the work we do, showing accountability and responsibility increases the importance and value of our clients.
