Preparing for External Auditors

My bank has outsourced internal audit in the past. I was hired to bring this function in-house. We are preparing for a financial statement audit and have differing opionions on who is responsible for preparing the schedules of information for the external auditors - the controller or internal auditor. This involves taking information from source document system reports and summarizing it in spreadsheets. The auditors present this information as our financial statements and the footnotes. Who does this in other banks? Thanks for your help.

Controllers prepares all financial footnotes and disclosures at our institution. We conduct testing and review of the statements that is included in the external audit review. It's part of our coordination between internal and external auditors.

I (Internal Auditor) am responsible for gathering all info and making sure that the auditors (and examiners) have everything they need. During the external audits and exams, I am nothing more than an intermediary. CFO/Finance Dept is responsible for making sure that the financial info that they give me is correct. I test during the year and External Audit reviews my audits.

I hope that helps.

Thank you for the info. I appreciate your help. Another consideration could be the size of the bank. My bank is $131 million in assets, 7 locations, and about 75 employees. Is your bank comparable with that?

We are about $110MM, 4 locations, and 40 employees.

This may not be the same kind of situation, but we have an annual Director's Exam that is required by Nebraska State Law. It's not an audit, but it is a review of all balance sheet accounts by a CPA firm. I am the main contact for questions/information for the auditors, however it is also a group effort when supplying them information about certain accounts. The controller/EVP is the 2nd main contact and was in control of this exam prior to my arrival at this bank. He passed it on to me mainly because I used to work at a CPA firm doing Director's Exams - I knew what they were looking for and the information they needed.

$240MM, 7 locations, 75 FT employees