Performance evaluation of internal auditing departments is extremely important as organisations depend on the advice and assurance they obtain from these department. Therefore, this study seeks to determine the perceived most relevant and appropriate performance measurement system (PMS) used to evaluate the performance of internal auditing departments. The determination of such a PMS may lead to effective performance measurement, meeting and exceeding stakeholders’ expectations, and achieving strategic objectives. Questionnaires were distributed to organisations that hold an internal auditing department within the regions of Cape Town, South Africa and Windhoek, Namibia. The Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) tool was used to analyse the data. The results obtained from the survey reveal that the most frequently used PMS to evaluate the performance of internal auditing departments is the Balanced Scorecard. The results also indicate that the Chief Audit Executive (CAE)/internal auditing managers are of the opinion that stakeholders expect the PMS of Internal Audit to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of their department. The CAE/internal auditing managers are also of the opinion that stakeholders expect the PMS to measure the competency of internal auditing departments and ensure that these departments adhere to the Code of Ethics, International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing (ISPPIA), and apply the risk-based approach to their operations. The implications of this study contribute to identifying the PMS perceived to be the most relevant and appropriate to evaluate the performance of internal auditing departments. This study has affirmed that the Balanced Scorecard is perceived to be this PMS for effective and efficient performance evaluation of internal auditing departments. Despite the Balanced Scorecard being the effective and efficient PMS for internal auditing departments, it is not utilised properly to make provision for measures focusing on the assessment of risk management processes, internal audit control, and governance.

Considerando a importância da avaliação do sistema de Contas a Pagar, bem como os riscos envolvidos, e que as entidades privadas sem finalidade de lucros devem obedecer, primeiramente, os princípios fundamentais e as normas da Contabilidade, o que se constata na realidade é que essas entidades não vem dando a devida atenção a estes procedimentos. Por isso, este estudo tem por objetivo avaliar o Sistema de Contas a Pagar de uma dessas instituições, e apresentar sugestões para a segurança e o aperfeiçoamento do Sistema. A organização estudada é sem fins lucrativos e se dedica à capacitação de servidores municipais nas várias áreas de atuação municipal. Primeiramente, buscou-se, por meio de referências bibliográficas, estabelecer o conceito de auditoria, suas origens, evolução da mesma no Brasil e a sua divisão em Auditoria Independente e Auditoria Interna. Num segundo momento foi analisado o sistema contábil existente, com especial atenção ao módulo do Contas a Pagar. Essa análise demonstrou haver fragilidades no sistema de controle interno. Constatada essa situação, foi então desenvolvida toda uma série de instrumentos e de procedimentos para dotar a organização de um sistema de Contas a Pagar confiável, bem como adotar uma sistemática de controles por projetos. Uma vez adotados os sistemas propostos será possível à organização controlar, efetivamente, o seu Contas a Pagar e a ter, tempestivamente, uma visão dos riscos envolvidos. Além disso, a nova formatação do sistema por projetos permitirá operacionalizar as prestações de contas aos stakeholders envolvidos. / Considering the importance of evaluating a Payables system, as well as the risks involved, and that the non-profit private entities must obey, first of all, the Accounting fundamental principles and norms, what we find in the day to day reality is that such entities are not giving the appropriate attention to these procedures. Thus, this study aims at evaluating the Payables System of one of these institutions, and presenting suggestions to the safeguard and betterment of the System. The organization studied is a non-profit one and it is dedicated to capacitating county personnel in the various areas of the municipal activities. Firstly, by using the available bibliographic references, the concept of Auditing, its origins and its evolution in Brazil, and its ramification in Independent Audit and in Internal Audit. have been established Afterward, the existing accounting system has been analyzed with special emphasis on the Payables module. This analysis has shown that a whole serie o fragilities did exist in their internal control system. Based on these findings a whole lot of instruments and procedures have been developed so that the organization would have a trustworthy Payables system, as well as an indication to provide the organization with a systematic projects control system. Whenever the proposed systems are implemented it will be possible to the organization to effectively control its Payables and to have, forthrightly, a perception of the risks involved. Furthermore, the new projects system format will enable the organization to be more accountable to all its stakeholders.

Diplomová práce Ekonomické a právní aspekty auditorské činnosti se zabývá činností auditora. První kapitola se věnuje právní regulaci auditorské činnosti, tj. zákonu č. 93/2009 Sb. Jelikož zákon nabyl účinnosti dne 14.4.2009, jedná se o téma navýsost aktuální. Práce detailně popisuje jednotlivé instituty nového zákona jako je Rada pro veřejný dohled nad auditem, subjekty veřejného zájmu, zabývá se podmínkami pro výkon auditorské činnosti. Pozornost je věnována i zvýšeným nárokům na chování auditora jako jsou etika, nezávislost a mlčenlivost. Významný prostor je věnován i Komoře auditorů ČR jako jediné samosprávné organizaci zastřešující všechny auditory či auditorské společnosti. Závěr právní části je věnován zhodnocení současného právního stavu a nástinu možného dalšího vývoje, kde autor zaujímá stanovisko k této úpravě. Druhá kapitola, nazvaná Ekonomické aspekty auditorské činnosti, se zabývá popisem auditorské činnosti doprovázený mnoha praktickými příklady, tj. popisem práce auditora na jednotlivých zakázkách. V této práci nejsou popsány všechny aspekty auditorské činnosti. Pozornost je zaměřena na nejdůležitější z nich. Struktura této kapitoly kopíruje sled auditorských prací. Postupně popisuje obecné cíle auditora, plánování auditu, identifikace a vyhodnocení rizik při auditních zakázkách,...

Purpose – It is argued that traditional audit methods are becoming outdated in terms of delivering sufficient assurance on business objectives, whereby, a paradigm shift towards continuous auditing (CA) is proposed and perceived as necessary both by academia, standard-setting groups, and business society. However, the practical prevalence of CA is insignificant in relation to the expectations depicted. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine why this is the case by means of investigating what factors that motivate an adoption of CA amongst various internal audit functions (IAFs). Design/methodology/approach – The study draws on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and data are obtained through semi-structured interviews capturing internal auditors’ attitude towards CA, and what factors that influence an adoption. Findings – There is a shattered view on CA amongst IAFs, where the proponents embrace it as a set of value-adding methodologies whilst the opponents argue that it falls outside their responsibility and threaten the independence of the function. Thus, why CA has not been leveraged to its full potential is, in contrast to previous research, not solely attributable to practical factors but also due to the IAFs’ vast differences in approach to CA as a concept. Practical implications – The study has brought attention to the distinguished disparity found in internal auditors’ attitude towards CA. Ultimately, doubts, whether CA should be leveraged by IAFs has come to light. These are hurdles that need to be considered, both by academia, standard-setting groups, and business society if the leap for CA ought to continue. Originality/value – The use of semi-structured interviews contributes to in-depth understandings and insights of the internal auditors’ attitudes towards CA. Moreover, such an approach is more likely to capture the stance towards CA in greater detail than that possible of previous large-scale surveys.

My thesis addresses to matters of rising connectedness of Accounting and Information Technologies. It describes history of forms and techniques used in Accounting and also the possibilities and trends of Applied Informatics used nowadays in this field. The text accents to efforts of making the process of accounting more effective by reducing the cost, improving the quality and by shortening the time it can be done. The part of my thesis also mentions the level of regulation of the techniques used for processing the accounting from the point of view of national norms and also of International standards.

This thesis describes the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) and the Vietnamese national Standards on Auditing (VSA), their genesis and current situation. The thesis presents a development of the audit in Vietnam, it's present situation and expected progress. The research refers to a survey. The aim of this survey was finding out the opinions and attitudes of Vietnamese's auditors to ISA and VSA.

The thesis is focused on non-profit organizations auditing, especially on public benefit corporations. Thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. Theoretical part is dedicated to general definition of non-profit sector and specification of public benefit corporations. This is followed by the definition of auditing and auditing procedures. In the practical part of thesis these auditing procedures are applied to the selected public benefit corporation. The main aim of the thesis is to acquaint the reader with the specifics of auditing in non-profit sector

Economic crime is always actual theme, even more when economy finds itself in crisis. It is a well-known fact, that in such times fraud risk increases even inside organizations. This thesis is dealing with economic crime from the perspective of auditor and fraud examiner and likewise in the terms of Czech criminal law. Fraud, as both professions call economic criminality, implies higher costs for organizations, that's why both private and government sector organizations strives to fight it. Statutory audit is being perceived as one of the means to detect fraud. But statutory audit often fails to satisfy these expectations, for it's objective is only in auditor's opinion to express, that financial statement doesn't contain material misstatement. Detecting fraud is a responsibility of the entity. As a result of discrepancies in concept of this responsibility between public and auditors arises expectation gap, which is one of the problems distinctly revealed in the beginning of the financial crisis, when big companies, whose financial statements were verified by auditor's unqualified opinion, found themselves in trouble. In this context the thesis specifies auditor's responsibility in the wording of International Standards on Auditing and Czech law. As more efficient anti-fraud means the forensic audit is being used, the thesis compares it with statutory audit especially in terms of detecting fraud.

Digitaliseringen anses vara en transformerande drivkraft i samhället med en betydande påverkan på revisionsbranschen. Revisionsarbetet utvecklas till att ske alltmer digitalt. Tidigare forskning belyser det faktum att revisorernas kompetensbehov har förändrats till följd av den teknologiska utvecklingen. Syftet med denna studie var att bilda en förståelse kring digitaliseringens påverkan på revisionsbranschen och därmed Revisorsinspektionens (RI) utbildningskrav för auktorisation av revisorer. En kvalitativ forskningsmetod har använts för att besvara studiens syfte och frågeställning. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har utförts med anställda från Revisorsinspektionen samt verksamma revisorer hos Big Four-byråerna. Den insamlade empirin har därefter analyserats utifrån studiens teoretiska referensram. Slutsatserna som dragits visar att digitaliseringen har en betydande påverkan på revisionsbranschen men endast en viss påverkan på Revisorsinspektionens utbildningskrav. De nya kraven från 2018 möjliggör en bredare utbildningsbakgrund hos revisorerna, vilket anses vara fördelaktigt enligt empirin ur ett digitaliseringsperspektiv.  Vidare visar studien att det föreligger ett förändringsbehov av Revisorsinspektionens utbildningskrav. Respondenter från revisionsbranschen anser att teknisk grundutbildning är fördelaktigt för revisorer, då stor del av revisionsarbetet sker med digitala arbetsverktyg. I takt med att klienterna även digitaliseras dras slutsatsen att viss teknisk kunskap är nödvändig för att revisorerna skall erhålla en förståelse kring klienternas finansiella information och dess verksamhet. Således anses det från revisionsbranschens håll att teknisk grundkunskap bör implementeras i RI:s utbildningskrav för auktorisation av revisorer. Enligt analys av empiri och den teoretiska referensramen tyder resultatet på att förändringar i utbildningskraven hindras av institutionell tröghet hos Revisorsinspektionen. / Digitalization is a transforming force with a significant impact within the auditing industry. The auditing process is developing towards being increasingly digital. Previous research has highlighted that the auditor’s competence needs have changed because of digitalization. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the impact of digitalization within the auditing industry and thereby the Swedish Inspectorate of Auditors’ (SIA) educational requirements for authorization of auditors. A qualitative research method has been used to answer the purpose and research questions of this paper. Interviews have been conducted with employees from the SIA and auditors at the Big Four-firms. The empirical data were analyzed based on the theoretical framework. The conclusions show that digitalization has a significant impact on the auditing industry, but only a certain impact on the SIA’s educational requirements. The new requirements from 2018 enable a wider educational background for auditors, which is considered advantageous for the auditing industry. Furthermore, the study shows that there is a need for change in the SIA’s educational requirements. Respondents from the auditing industry believe that basic technical education is beneficial for auditors, as most of the auditing process is performed by using digital tools. It is concluded that some technical knowledge is necessary for the auditors to gain an understanding of the clients’ financial information and its operations. It is therefore considered that basic technical knowledge should be implemented in the SIA’s educational requirements. However, the result indicates that changes in these requirements are prevented by institutional inertia at the SIA.

The dilemma of money laundering is an undeniable problem faced by many institutions all over the world. Due to its prevalence, the need for organisations to deal with the problem has become a global priority, regardless of the size of the financial institutions. Despite the compliance AML efforts undertaken by various institutions, AML compliance appears to be a daunting challenge, the question posed by this research is whether there is a need for independent anti-money laundering (AML) compliance reviews, given the invasive nature of money laundering in financial institutions. Secondly, the research addresses the question of who is well positioned to perform the independent AML compliance reviews. In addressing the second question, the research will discuss why internal audit is an invaluable resource in terms of risk management processes and the reasons why they are an integral part of the AML solution. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Auditing / unrestricted