I would like to know if anyone has a list of questions that need to be asked in the internal audit of the Finance departement. Thanks for your help.

Hello Sophia, and welcome to the Cove!

1.Do you have some type of Quality Management System in Place? Would this be part of your internal audit scope?
2. Is this internal audit for compliance with SOX (or equivalent) or for gov't requirements?

I am trying to determine exactly what the purpose of your internal audits is. This will help provide a strong foundation for which questions will be appropriate for an internal auditor.

For example, is your internal audit scope: appropriateness of depreciation tables, accurate calculation of cash flows, treasury reports, accurate estimation of assets, dual-book-keeping, objectivity, safeguards for pension plan, etc.

Too, I am from Texas, and you are in beautiful Switzerland. So there may be multiple differences in requirements and standard practices.

Well I am implementing ISO9000 and ISO13485 in a small NGO which only does project Management for IVD development. All manaufacturing is outsourced to cooperation partners. But the process is controlled by the NGO.

I am at the present time trying to audit all the processes I have identified and on of them is the finance departement. I am a bit lost on the subject. I would like to ask relevent question to the CFO regarding ISO quality Management System. Thanks for helping

Well I am implementing ISO9000 and ISO13485 in a small NGO which only does project Management for IVD development. I am at the present time trying to audit all the processes I have identified and on of them is the finance departement. I would like to ask relevent question to the CFO regarding ISO quality Management System. Thanks for helping

What QMS processes does the finance department have responsibility for (e.g., what procedures for implementing ISO 9001 & 13485) include the finance department? In many organizations is it very little; perhaps cost of quality, or reporting metrics for tracking other quality objectives.

What are you supposed to or required to do?

Do you do it?

Well I am not a finance expert and I would like to go to the audit with viable and useful question.

I'm not a financial expert either so make your own mind up on this advice.

A friend of mine is an accountant and asked me to help with ISO 9001 in his office. My advice was limited to describing the processes and helping him identify those he had in place (I wouldn't do that for him).

Identify the inputs which may include tax legislation, payroll details, shipping information, expense claims and lots more.

Identify the outputs, invoices, payslips, tax returns, financial statements.

How do they get from the inputs to the outputs, how do they make sure the outputs are correct and how do they monitor the effectiveness of the processes?

I know this is vague but hope it helps.

Well I am not a finance expert and I would like to go to the audit with viable and useful question.

I note that you had not answered a question on whether you have a procedure for the finance department. If you do, your job as the auditor is to go through the procedure and check if things are done according to what's outlined in the procedure. You will need to gather evidence to show whether its done according or not according to the procedure. Your scope is limited to what is written inside the procedure and no more.

Most of us do not have procedures for finance department and if that is so for your case, then your scope is usually limited to finance related matters in purchasing, invoicing and sales. Again you can only audit or ask questions and collect evidence on whatever is written in your procedure with regards to finance and no more.

Finance is a regulated department in most countries and they are usually well organized and run and they are subject to their own form of audit.

Well I am not a finance expert and I would like to go to the audit with viable and useful question.

If you have no financial background what are you doing looking at a financial process?

Apparently you knowledge of the audit process is just as weak.

Bottom line Grasshopper....You identify what the requirements are and you verify whether or not they are being met.

You cannot base questions of a process on unknown requirements. The big DUH comes into play here.

Oh, by the way, I do have a financial and auditing background and I know what I'm talking about.

To amplify what has already been said, I have one more question: Audit the finance department against what?

Unless we have a standard or procedure to compare the working system to, an audit would be limited to the individual auditor's own opinion, and like other items, we all have one, so to speak.

In the U.S. there are 2 sets of rules that come to mind that could be used to audit finance/accounting. One is the Infernal Revenue Code (taxes). The other is GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principals). As mentioned here in a previous post, if there is an internal procedure in place, that could/should be used as well.

We have had a few discussions here at the Cove concerning applying ISO 9001 to accounting/finance, and while the appropriateness of that is pretty well decided for me, there still is some controversy.

The best place to start is identifying the processes that involve the finance department. Once you have identified the processes follow these processes in your audit.

When I audit finance it pretty much soley covers the billing process, I dont touch anything to do with how accounts are organised, banking is performed payroll etc. as I don't have knowledge of the rules and systems of these and these are covered in finicial audits.

For your company, project management, billing is likely to be your main area.
Some questions could be:

how do they know when they need to generate an invoice?

how do they know the terms of payment?

what information do they need to calculate invoices?

how do they ensure they have all the information for generating an invoice (time sheets, items your company has supplied etc.)?

how do they track invoices once sent to customer ?

Hope this helps get you started.

There are many management systems with an organization:

- quality management
- safety management
- environmental management
- human resource management
- information technology management
- financial management
etc.

ISO 9001 is about quality management, which, unless the organization is in the financial services business, will have very little impact on the finance department.