Auditing Ain't a Piece of Cake

When you're working for a corporation with full-blown politics being practised from every step of the corporate ladder, it's difficult to blend in. When you're one of the auditors of the said company, then it's much worse.

Take for example my case. I'm an internal auditor of this company for about six months now, and the youngest auditor right until the start of February when the company decided to hire someone younger. I'm now 22 and trying to work hard, the way I knew how real auditing is done. As of this entry, I am feeling quite uncomfortable because a report I released just this afternoon turned out to have one word too many.

I think the use of the word "assumed" hurt them most, especially the auditee. They say I did not do my job correctly. Well for their information, I did. I kept on pushing for the auditee to provide me with information as early as possible, but it seems they try really hard not to mind. I kept on asking, still, no immediate action nor reply. Even the final audit report was released 2 1/2 weeks overdue, just waiting for them to update me or something to that effect.

But needless to say, any additional information or supporting document they might give which are dated past the date of the document being audited is surely irrelevant. They should think about this concept because this is the core of the audit process. Supporting documents should be dated before and/or on the date of the transaction or document being audited. Any sane person with a background on auditing and accounting knows this and this should not be taken for granted. Otherwise, auditing becomes a nuisance and not a value-adding task.

Apparently, even the higher authority takes this lightly in the effort to save their sorry behinds.