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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Small (microscopic) nonprofit.
Our audited financial statements and single audit report presentations corresponded to the expectations of the regulatory agencies to whom we had to send them. We were required to make our financial statements available to the public. PDF is universally accepted and easy to post to our public website.
The auditor provided the presentation and explanation of the audits to our audit committee and to our board. The style of the presentation was between the auditor and the audit committee.
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.
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.
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.
We use a pdf report but simplified the report to where we have a one-page summary that we embed in the email distribution while attaching the full report. This approach has allowed the audience to quickly understand the high level of the audit including the Scope and Approach, Objective, Background, Conclusion and issues, if any.