ERWIA

Effective Report Writing for Internal Auditors

The 5 dilemmas of audit reporting What is a best practice report? Top tips – communicating results The challenges of audit reporting Grabbing attention Getting the message across Getting action The need for impact Ideas on creating impact What management expect – recent survey of chief executive IIA professional standards

The 35 questions (all based on best practice) – how did you score? What are the factors preventing the achievement of these best practice measures 30 tips, techniques and ideas to help you score a maximum - How to get 95% of recommendations implemented - Use of charts and photos - Dealing with minor issues - Future focus - Order of importance of the issues - Actions rather than recommendations - Action plans Discussion of the implications How to assess the needs of the audit customerss

The role of the executive summary 20 tips for writing better summaries Targeting the executive summary to the reader The benefits of writing the executive summary before the main report Asking a non-technical person to read it

The psychological problem with reports The need to meet and hopefully exceed management expectations The need to focus on benefits rather than problems Marketing the audit reporting process An example presentation will be shared Relationships with management Expressing yourself effectively The need to drive action Creating rapport with your customers – tips and techniques The need to understand the people receiving the reports

Messages rather than content Outcomes rather than output Solutions not problems Auditor and reader mindsets Why audit reports are taken as a criticism of management Ways to make the reports more positive Benefits and deliverables Conclusions How to draft a report with impact – discussion of banner headlines and their relative impact Language and impact Simple and complex language The use of ‘power words’ in your communications How to get on the same wavelength as your customer Highlighting the issues that matter Audit observations New paper on audit observations will be shared Causes and effects

Keeping it simple The report process Writing the main report Dealing with writer’s block Audit objectives Scope Forming and expressing the audit opinion Wording tips Tone Writing effective coherent sentences and paragraphs The editing process – tips for success The power of senior management comments Circulation lists Formatting ideas How to avoid repeating any sections in the executive summary Words and phrases to avoid How to reduce the number of words Why the spellchecker sometimes does not help you Dealing with the difficulties of the English language

Recommendations and actions plans Management comments How to reflect the right issues for the Audit Committee Audit Committee report examples The need to be on your customers’ side Follow up audits – using the action plan How to get management to take responsibility for actions Ways to improve the follow-up process Issuing the report Presenting or issuing reports including the use of e-mail and the Intranet Alternative methods of reporting e.g. PowerPoint Examples of excellent reports will be provided Reporting performance indicators Tracking actions Steps to success