Team Members?
What kind of of career/academic background should your internal audit members possess?
I had hoped to see others respond to this but, will chime in...I think it is a good idea to have a mix of experience representing the various areas of audit. Specifically, internal audit is often focused on the finance side. While I do think it's important to have representation with accounting expertise, I also think in the education industry, experience in an operational and/or compliance area is useful. Those with experience with a relevant accrediting body will have first hand knowledge of requirements and areas subject to external reviews by these bodies. Experience with Dept of Ed regulations is also valuable as many regulators tend to mirror some of the DOE guidelines.
Internal audit members should hold master degrees and have about 5-7 years experience in school's management positions
A solid background in the education field is beneficial - at least five years experience with a college in a management position provides a solid understanding of all functional areas and the types of findings that are specific to the institution as well as common in the field. Exposure and active participation in preparing for or overseeing a regulatory agency audit is a valuable learning experience.
At least 5 years of experience in the field with management experience in the subject area of their audit piece.
I agree. I think it is a good idea to ha ve a mix of experience representing the various areas of audit.
At least 5 or 7 years of experience and a good skills of management to create the best team to get a good results to present a the end of the audit.
We seem to all agree that the IA team member needs to have several years of experience, and have a role in education as well as finance. In reality, however, I have encountered more brand-new auditors freshly minted with an accounting degree than any other type of auditor. In these instances, it is important to treat the auditor fairly and to remember that we all work for the same company and have the same end goals in mind.
Audit team memebers should be from every dept. and include senior staff members who have been through the accreditation process.
I agree that internal audit team members should be a good mix of Academic and financial aid personal. I prefer to have management and department managers involved so there is less pointing fingers at each other and work to together as a team to take care of the findings. We are a school with about 200 students so this has been helpful so far, so moving forward might have to adjust.
I would agree. I think it is very important to have a mix of experience.
If every member of the audit team is part of another department then the audit will not be independent. A member of a team may be reluctant to say their good friend (who's a co-worker) or even themselves made a large mistake. It would lead to subjective conclusions rather than objective conclusions.
Spencer,
Such conflicts of interest are certainly a risk. Some audit testing lends itself to more objectivity than others.
Traci Lee
I work for a school with many campuses. If staff from one campus were to audit other campuses, they would bring a fresh, objective vision , which the "hometown" staff would not have. Also the visiting staff could learn from the approach of the host campus.
Mala,
Great suggestion with many benefits to all involved.
Traci Lee
The audit team should be comprised of members with the appropriate experience to fully evaluate their assigned aspects for compliance. In other words, most academic personnel are not qualified to audit all aspects of the Student Finance operation. To an extent, this can be accomodated by having a well developed audit process however, it's my believe that this is one area where process can not make up for experience (there's simply too much to look for). I do favor including inexperienced staff as well in that an audit can be very educational for them.
Fears of bias can be alleviated in three ways: publishing the list of auditors and giving both the to-be-audited entity and the auditors the opportunity to address perceived biases, ensuring that the initial audit is intended to be educational (the goal is to learn and get it right) and finally, holding the auditors as well as the auditted accountable to their results.
Internal audit members should be well educated about related fiels and have experience
I agree having a team with a variety of experience can only benefit by having insight from a mixture of backgrounds.
Danielle,
It also serves as a good "cross training" opportunity.
Traci Lee
We do our internal audits the same way as Mala, with a person from each campus visiting other campuses. We also have a few employees from each campus responsible for reviewing the files before and after the audits to ensure they are in compliance regularly. A checklist to use doing the review is key. I do not think an internal staff member has to have at least 5 years of experience. Our "team" has staff with less experience. What is most important is their attention to detail to "catch" what others may have missed before a real audit takes place.
