What does your Final Audit Report look like? Is it a document (PDF?), dashboard, or something completely different? Looking for inspiration and ideas to improve our current reporting process. 

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Dr2 days ago

Audit Report Delivery: One Email, One Attachment, Full Traceability

A single email containing the audit report as a PDF attachment could serve as the most effective evidence that the report has been formally issued and communicated. 
The distribution list within the email itself provides clear documentation of who received it, ensuring traceability and compliance with communication protocols 

Why This Matters
This method ensures:
- Traceability: The email timestamp and recipients confirm when and to whom the report was sent.
- Accountability: The sender and sign-off requirements establish ownership.
- Compliance: It aligns with internal standards and regulatory expectations for audit communication.

Finance Analyst in Travel and Hospitality6 months ago

Working on an excel report and create dashboard after the analysis and send a copy of it as PDF as well as excel so that it will be easy for them to copy the data if needed.

Internal Audit Specialist in Energy and Utilities8 months ago

Big companies I've experienced mainly PDF format containing cover letter, boilerplate introductions, scope, opinion or not, summery of observations, individual observation/ risks/compliance criteria/recommendation or not/ management action plan & date.  Some businesses want the observation section more in a table format rather than paragraph format.
In some smaller IA shops the approach is more simplified with excel or word protected documents that chart all observations/ risks/ compliance criteria& citation/ management action plan and date.  The intent was quick reporting turnaround after fieldwork, easy to use and understand template.  The text wasn't even full blown grammatically correct - it was often short hand.  Quick turnarounds and most of the end-users understood the grammar/ terms/ acronyms.
Doing advisory services work, I see various deliverables that could influence how assurance audits are reported, but in the end, its up to leadership's direction.
What I dislike the most are typical government audit reports where the total pages are way more than the number of observations.  It is painful to digest those reports, page for page.  Don't turn the effort into a bureaucratic nightmare.  You must have your own desired outcomes or objectives?  So map out how you could envision each control assigned to the outcome/ objective, while also documenting the risks that control presents. you may surprise yourself with your creativity OR you may now see why most reports are similar in industry. 

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VP of Finance in Services (non-Government)9 months ago

We use PowerPoint Dashboards to create and when draft and then convert to .pdf when distributed. For process owners, first page is summary dashboard including Header (area tested, team, overall rating), Key Themes (concise with reference to details on next pages), Graphical Illustration (if possible), Background / Scope and second page includes more detail: Observations, Management Action Plan, Remediation Targeted Timing.  For management, Executive Summary dashboard including Header (area tested, team, overall rating), Key Themes (concise with reference to details being provided to process owners), Graphical Illustration (if possible), Background / Scope. 

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no title6 months ago

I am trying to move towards that direction as well.  At a minimum, for advisory and PoV prior to the final report (we operate in agile capacity hence we share PoV for our sprint review and discussion).  i find because it's in PowerPoint and not as traditional or tough in word format, generally discussion with auditees seem to be easier. <br><br>Where i face challenges is when it's time to consolidate the issue.  Each PoV per sprint makes sense but chances are you want to consolidate similar themes together for the final report.  That to me is such a waste of unnecessary time just to re-package it all up, rather than have one page executive and all the previous PoV as support.  However, if you do that, because certain things may not be FULLY vetted, then auditees don't want to see that....<br><br>On a separate note, i just realize that i responded to this 7 months ago and at that point, it was still just discovery stage. While we are fully there yet but we have at least main changes to aspect of it!!

Team Lead Quality Assurance in Energy and Utilitiesa year ago

We have 2 reports in PDF: More detailed (for process owners and management) and condensed (for senior leadership). 

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