Internal controls means more than testing and documentation. Controls are powerful processes find below 5 ways to reduce stress @ Internal control organisation
Periodic review of control inventory
Along with people and technology Internal control change. It is important to build a strong change management around internal control inventory to capture changes as soon as it happens.
Continuous control self attestation
Even best of the Internal control process and tools become useless if controls are not performed as per the design. Implement a self attestation workflow where control performers report the status of controls and same reviewed by control owner.
Centralised evidence repository
Control evidence documentation is as important as control execution. Substantial reduction in audit cost is possible with centralisation of audit evidence and proactive storing of the appropriate evidences.
Evidence requisition workflow
A systematic workflow to request evidences in advance can reduce last minute scramble to gather evidences. An alert, reminder and escalation system can reduce auditor's time on the ground resulting in cost reduction.
Robotics for Control validation
RPA and Desktop automations can be deployed in data collection, validation of population, sample selection and set-up evidence gathering workflow. This helps auditors to focus more on data/control validation and less on data collection and administration.