内部审计的英文文献

内部和外部审计监督的实证比较

理查德?L.拉特利夫、理查德?L.詹森、詹姆斯 C.弗拉格

管理审计杂志，第8 卷，第2章，2006 年，第9-16页

? MCB 大学出版社，0268-6902 引言

审计监督项目的对象包括所有可以确保审核有效地进行的必要活动。监督一个审计项目与向管理方提出的审计报告息息相关。新西兰社会会计师公会在其审计准则中明确提出正确的审计业务过程中应当包含约定计划和监督。内部审计师协会（IIA）以及其在美国的总部与新西兰的区域分会在其《内部审计专业实践标准》中也提到：“审计工作应妥善计划和监督”。

总体审计项目监督中很重要的一方面就是对那些计划已得到批准的审计工作的监督。

内部审计师协会（IIA）重点要求审计项目应得到“妥善监管”，其中包括：

●指导审计人员的工作分配

●监督审计方案的批准

●确保有足够数量的审计底稿

●保证足够的审计报告

●确保审计目标的实现

●监督审计过程中记录并保留证据

新西兰社会会计师公会在审计准则4中明确指出：“审计工作者应当小心地直接监督和审查那些委托助理们完成的工作。”为达到本文研究目的，这里引用准则4中提到的审计监督方面的术语包括“方向”“监督”“审查”。

“方向”包括“告知助理他们的职责和审计程序的目标”，督促他们并且“让他们知道那些可能会影响整个审计程序的性质、时间及进度的事项……”。准则针对正确的审计工作列出了时间计划表、计划备忘和审计书面方案。

“监督”包括监察审计工作的进展、对审计工作计划中要求修改的部分提出警告以及用自己的专业判断来解决问题。准则中同时还指出：对每一项由助理完成的工作必须进行检查。

尽管内部审计师协会（IIA）和新西兰社会会计师公会提供了一些关于审计监督的指导性意见，但除了公会简要的未明确定义出规划的时间表、计划备忘以

及审计方案外，并未就审计目标如何达成作出说明。如何管理审计并监督审计团队？哪些常见的手段是内外部审计项目中都会用到的？这些问题在内部审计师协会（IIA）和新西兰社会会计师公会的准则中都只是一带而过。

专业学术理论

同样的，一些专业性学术理论文献资料也未就以上问题给出详细的解答，同时并未提及审计监督中的实证证据。据现有文献了解到，已经有几项关于审计规划与调度方面研究。

Kearns 和Myott也讨论到关于在整体行政管理的审计环节中作业控制号、作业控制日志的使用。就目前而言，还未出现定位在具体的审计项目监督技术方面的课题研究。

Defji在一片关于审计业务约定的有效性管理的简短的专题论文中，借鉴了国际审计准则3号文件，明确指出了一些应适用于所有有效且高效审计工作的质量控制程序。这些程序包括：规定工作文件的形式与内容、审计方案的建设与使用、关于内部控制的调查问卷和流程图的使用以及一些法定要求披露的会计准则中指出的清单。

Willson和Root在他们的文献中推荐使用一定数量的审计管理工具和技术。这些技术包括：审计手册，问卷和清单，任务授权形式，项目预算，项目报告，审计方案和项目控制质量综述。Ratliff等人讨论出十二个审计管理辅助项目，包括：工作授权形式、审计清单、审计员分配形式和分配板、工作时间控制表、工作论文指标、审计方案、会议议程、工作文件、工作文件审查表、总结发现、报告审查签收表、并报告释放控制片。

Bacsik和Rizzo鼓励及时审查审计工作底稿，提出了“审查控制表”来确定每个审查员的责任区并监测公开审查的范围。作者进一步提出了“公开项目清单”，以监测那些尚未解决的审计问题。

然而，这些资料中并没有提供一个可以囊括所有应予以审计监督项目的连贯的结构。他们不仅没有就具体使用什么技术可以得出一些实证证据作出解释，而且实际上没有提供一些用于内外部审计的技术方面的相关建议。另外，也没有任何关于如何制定出完整的审计工作表的建议。因此，本文将研究探讨在内外部审计中的审计监督技术。

课题研究假设

似乎多方因素都表明，审计监督与外部审计的关系比与内部审计更加密切。例如，在外部审计过程中遇到的审计风险比内部审计更高，尤其是一些暴露在个人和公司的审计人员面前的风险。某位内部审计师可能会因为审计工作中的重大错误而仅仅失去工作，但外部公共审计人员却可能因为面向更为广泛的公众，而同时受到法律的制裁。

同样的，错误的内部审计报告可能误导管理决策，在有限的范围内给个别组织的利益造成直接损害。因此，内部审计报告所带来的风险，也相对的仅限于个别公司。但与此不同的是，外部公共审计报告的公开发表，将审计公司暴露于更加广泛的审查和可能面对的相应法律惩罚之下。

此外，在日益激烈的竞争环境中，提供公共审计的外部审计公司可能将利润动机大量的施加给个别公司内部审计环节中，以获得更高的效率；同时，更多人已经开始意识到“期望差距”也在给逐渐增多的的审计保证施加着很大的压力。而内部审计组织，因为他们的雇主也在面临着与之类似的压力，诚然，这些来自经济、效率、有效性的一系列压力是不可避免的，至少这些内部审计组织间接或直接面对的威胁并没有那么大。

越来越大的风险和经济压力最终可能导致对一些外部审计师的审计项目控制得更加严格。

最后，内部审计的活动范围重点几乎覆盖了整个财务报告，这要比对外部审计的范围更为广泛。另外，内部审计的工作目标包括：遵守测试、检测性能，甚至还涉及简单地探索潜在审计风险，这也和外部审计不尽相同。基于不同的工作性质和技能而分配的审计工作，往往会导致不同类型的审计工作之间，在各自所需的审计监督上存在很大的区别。这一差别由内部审计师协会（IIA）指定。

外部审计是对完整的财务报表表达审计意见，其审计范围和工作重点在不同的外部审计中都不如内部审计来的广泛，因此，需要更多的审计监督。

除了应用于外部和内部审计的审计监督技术，本文还研究比较了审计监督控制对外部审计与内部审计的相对重要程度。这项研究还比较了内部和外部审计两种审计类型下的的监督控制。这项研究仅限于新西兰。

An Empirical Comparison of Internal and External Audit

Supervision

Richard L. Ratliff, Richard L. Jenson and James C. Flagg

Source: Managerial Auditing Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2, 2006, pp. 9-16.

? MCB University Press, 0268-6902 Introduction

Audit project supervision includes all activities necessary to assure that audits are conducted efficiently and effectively. Supervising an audit project starts with the initial plan and ends only upon completion of any follow up requirements related to the audit report presented to management. The New Zealand Society of Accountants prescribes in its Auditing Standards that audit engagements be properly planned and supervised. The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), with headquarters in the United States and regional chapters in New Zealand, also provides in its Standards for Professional Practice of Internal Auditing that audit work should be properly planned and supervised.

An important part of overall audit project supervision is the supervision of audit work once the plan has been approved. The IIA standards specifically provide that audit projects should be "properly supervised", which includes[2]:

●instructing auditors on their assignments;

●seeing that the approved audit programme is carried out;

●determining the adequacy of audit working papers;

●determining the adequacy of audit report;

●determining that the audit objectives are met;

●documenting and retaining evidence of audit supervision.

The New Zealand Society of Accountants, in Auditing Standard 4, prescribes that "The auditor should carefully direct, supervise and review work which is delegated to assistants. For the purposes of this study, the term supervision includes "direction", "supervision", and "review" as prescribed in AS 4.

Direction, according to AS 4, includes "informing assistants of their responsibilities and the objectives of the procedures" assigned to them, and

"informing them of matters . . . that may affect the nature, timing and extent of audit procedures". The standard lists time budgets, planning memoranda, and written audit programmes as appropriate means to direct audit work.

Supervision, according to AS 4, should include monitoring the progress of audit work, being alert to conditions requiring modifications in planned audit work, and resolving questions of professional judgement among personnel. The standard also specifies that the work of each assistant should be reviewed.

While these provisions by the IIA and the New Zealand Society of Accountants offer some guidance regarding objectives of audit supervision, they do not give much guidance on how those objectives are to be achieved, beyond the Society's very brief and undefined list of time budgets, planning memoranda and audit programmes. How should audits be managed and audit teams supervised? What common devices are actually used to supervise audit projects for both external and internal audits? Both the Society's and the IIA's standards are very quiet in answer to these questions. Academic and Professional Literature

Likewise, the academic and professional literature is remarkably quiet in answer to these questions, and is essentially silent of empirical evidence regarding audit supervision. Several studies have been reported related to audit planning and scheduling.

Kearns and Myott also discuss the use of job control numbers and job control logs in the overall executive management of audit functions. Yet none of these studies addresses specific supervision techniques for individual audit projects.

Defji[9], in a short treatise on the effective management of audit engagements, using as a reference the International Audit Guideline No. 3, specifies certain procedures which should be applied on all audits for effective and efficient quality control. These procedures include instructions concerning the form and content of working papers, the construction and use of audit programmes, the use of standardized internal control questionnaires and flowcharts, and checklists covering statutory disclosure requirements and accounting standards.

Willson and Root[11] recommend a variety of audit management tools and

techniques in their manual. These techniques include: audit manuals, questionnaires and checklists, assignment authorization forms, project time budgets, project reports, audit programmes, and project quality control reviews. Ratliff et al. discuss 12 audit project management aids, including: job authorization forms, audit checklists, auditor assignment forms and assignment boards, job time control sheets, working paper indexes, audit programmes, meeting agendas, working papers, working paper review sheets, summary finding sheets, report review sign-off sheets, and report release control sheets.

Bacsik and Rizzo[13] encourage timely review of audit working papers, recommending "review control sheets" to identify each reviewer's area of responsibility as well as for monitoring open review areas. The authors further suggest an "open items list" to monitor unresolved audit issues.

None of these references, however, offers a cohesive structure in which to consider the supervision of audit projects. Nor do they offer empirical evidence regarding what techniques, either those recommended or others, are actually used on internal or external audits. Nor is there any suggestion as to how complete the lists are. Therefore, this study empirically examines which audit supervisory techniques are practised on external and internal audits.

Considerations for Hypotheses

A variety of factors would seem to suggest that external audits probably are more closely supervised than are internal audits. For example, the risks facing external audits seem greater than those of internal audits, especially in terms of risk exposure to the individual auditor and the firm. An individual internal auditor may lose his or her job due to serious error in audit work, but an external auditor, because of a much broader public constituency, may be subject to legal penalties as well.

Similarly, erroneous internal audit reports may misinform management, restricting direct harm to the individual organization. Consequently, the risk posed by internal audit reports to the individual firm is relatively restricted. On the other hand, external audit reports are issued publicly, exposing the auditing firm to extensive general scrutiny and possible legal action and penalties.

Further, the profit motivation of external auditing firms in an increasingly competitive environment would seem to put extensive pressure on individual audits for economy and efficiency at the same time as what has come to be known as an "expectation gap" is exerting extensive pressure for greater audit assurances. While internal auditing groups, because of similar economic pressures against their employers, certainly also must be experiencing such pressures for economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, at least indirectly, the direct threat to those internal auditing groups would not seem to be as great.

The greater risk and economic pressures could reasonably lead to tighter control of the audit project on the part of external auditors.

Finally, internal auditing is practised over a much broader range of activities than is external auditing, which focuses almost exclusively on matters related to financial reporting. Also the purposes of internal audits vary considerably, including testing compliance, examining performance, or even simply exploring potential risks. Depending on the nature of the audit work and the skills of the assigned auditors, the degree of audit supervision is likely to vary considerably from audit to audit. Such variation is even prescribed by IIA standards (IIA, 280.04)[1].

External audits are conducted to express opinions on the integrity of financial statements. The range and focus of audit activity among different external audits is likely to be narrower than on internal audits, leading to more consistent audit supervisory requirements.

In addition to examining empirically which audit supervisory techniques are actually practised on external and internal audits, this study compares the relative degree of supervisory control exercised over external audits with that of internal audits. The study also compares the variability of supervisory control within each classification — internal and external. The study is restricted to New Zealand.