In your normal course of running an audit, when your staff completes audit testwork, do you re-perform some of their work?

For example, the auditor reviewed 30 new loans for compliance with various aspects of loan origination. The auditor documents his work with highly detailed attributes. As part of your review process as the person running the audit (and ultimately responsible for the quality), do you take a sub-sample of loans that the auditor reviewed, pull the loan documentation again and review, to ensure testwork was properly completed?

Please keep in mind that audit staff are assigned testwork based on qualifactions and level of experience as compared to the complexity of the testwork. In addition, as the person running the audit, guidance and coaching is being given to the audit staff throughout the audit.

With that being said, do you feel it is necessary to re-perform some of the auditor's work, assuming the person had the requisite experience and qualifications compared to the complexity of the audit work?

Thanks!

I wouldn't call it "re-perform," but yes.

When I walk thru the review of a junior auditor's work, I click into the work papers and see it. Their job is to line it all up for me. I review by looking at their findings, their log of what they looked at, and then clicking into the actual WP.

That said, I also assign test work based on levels of knowledge and experience. So when my most junior staff member says he's looked at x number of these and has findings....I might go pull the whole file to see if he missed it or have a level 2 auditor recheck files before I review.

The beauty is when you have staff you can rely on and the WPs make every finding (or lack thereof) so evident. But if something is missing...I will usually pull a file or whatever just to make sure it didn't get missed.

I rambled on a bit, but not sure I gave a very good answer!

I don't reperform testwork for a particular audit step. In reviewing the workpapers, I generally have a detailed discussion with the auditor about the audit process for that step and workpaper, along with how they derived at their conclusion.

For a junior auditor, the person running the audit works much more closely with that auditor throughout the testing to ensure audit objectives and understanding of testing, audit evidence, etc. is there...and also, if warranted will double check (re-perform) a portion of the work, if something seems off or the confidence level is not there. That is common due diligence for the audit and mentoring of your audit staff for their development.

I am not asking about the normal diligence in workpaper review. My question was more of, as a normal practice or set procedure, do you reperform a sample of an auditor's work (all auditors)?

I am guessing the answer will be no. I am questioning this because someone is implying it should be done as a matter of practice...we will see where this leads...I wanted to get a pulse on what other audit departments are doing.

Thanks!

No I do not reperform testwork and never plan too. From all my experience, this has never been brought up to me.

No, however this is often the approach of the external auditors, particularly with mutually agreed on proceedures. External Auditors will "re-perform" some work in order to obtain a comfort level.

tennismom, to clarify, are you stating the external auditors re-perform a sample of the internal auditor's work? If yes, I agree, that is what they typically do, prior to reliance on work performed by the internal audit department. Or are you stating external auditors re-perform a sample of their own (external auditor) staff's work?

My question is for internal audit...internal auditor re-performing their own (internal audit) staff's work.

tennismon, I think we are talking about 2 different topics here. We (internal audit) perform some test work for our external auditors. Yes they will reperform some test work we performed for them because they are relying on our work. To the original topic, I still say no not being conducted and never been asked about it.

Thank you for the responses...anyone else? yea or nay?

Interesting discussion. Here is another perspective. I was asked by department mgr. to have another audit staff person conduct a portion of 'my' audit. I was then given that person's results (in work paper form) that I was to include in my final audit report. I was not confident (just a feeling) of that person's auditing review and finding/recommendations, re-performed the work entirely and found the gut feeling was accurate. This person's work and findings were lets just say 'false'. Can't imagine how long it would have taken to get my reputation back if I had just 'assumed' someone else's work is quality. This person is no longer an internal auditor but still looks for the drama in another department

kiemo, I totally understand that...if there are any doubts as to the quality of work of one of my staff, I would 1) have detailed probing conversations to see if the person understood the work performed, including having them walk me through exact steps they performed and why/what were they looking for, and 2) reperform some or all of the work depending on the degree of confidence based on step 1.

But, as a matter of protocol, we do not have it in our process to always subsample our auditor's work.