The role of internal audit has expanded as auditors have taken on more responsibilities. Businesses no longer only look to the function as evaluators of effectiveness, but also urge internal auditors to add value to their organizations. Thus, internal auditors are now expected to improve efficiency and operations, especially in the face of rising compliance risks and costs.
A report by software vendor MetricStream, “Strengthening Internal Audit’s Business Impact,” offers four ways auditors can add value to their businesses.
Keep Strategic Objectives in Focus
Internal auditors can easily add value by ensuring that their objectives and plans are aligned with business objectives. Such a practice can help auditors deliver relevant insight, and can also help sharpen the business’ focus. Through aligning objectives, auditors can prompt the business to review their objectives to make sure they are precise, attainable, and practical, adding value the entire organization.
To do so, auditors require a strong understanding of the business. Although technical skills are important in auditing, knowledge of the business is also instrumental to performing a good audit. Auditors need to understand the operation of the business at multiple levels and identify strengths and weaknesses to properly accomplish their goals.
Take Stock Regularly
Auditors should plan regular meetings to measure progress and review objectives. Through regular communication, they can quickly identify flaws in their audit plans and adapt their strategies. Every audit has a different level of relevance, and based on that knowledge, auditors can give different weights to different audits.
Objectives may change throughout the audit, so auditors need to continuously have conversations with the business and within the team to focus on the right objectives.
Clear and Targeted Reports
As reports are the auditor’s most direct tools for suggestions, crafting easy-to-understand reports is of utmost importance. Auditors should break down highly technical concepts into relatable terms as well as turning facts and data into a narrative that businesses can understand.
Auditors should highlight areas of specific interest that most impact the objectives of the business. Business leaders would know to address those points first and can prioritize issues that create the most value.
With the amount of data ever increasing, auditors can look to predictive analytics to stop risks before they become greater problems. Technology can help pull together data, as well as connect audit teams across locations, and standardize reporting to create better reports.
Go Agile
Agile auditing responds dynamically to changing risks and stakeholder expectations, allowing auditors to stay current and relevant in their audits. The switch to agile auditing usually stems from a need to cut costs and a desire to strengthen collaboration with the business to deliver faster and better insights.
The agile approach is built on frequent feedback and short, targeted, collaborative projects that are flexible to adapt to changing environments. Agile audits are focused on the needs of the business and use outside experts to fill in the gaps of knowledge within the audit team, allowing the function to specifically tailor its services to the greatest benefit for the business. Agile auditing can improve reporting and stakeholder satisfaction, and help the audit team’s morale and added-value.
Internal auditors are more and more expected to add value to the organizations they serve. They can enable business leaders to effectively deal with issues and prepare them for future problems that may arise. With the tips that the report offered, auditors can rise to the challenge and help their organizations thrive in a dynamic world. 
Stephanie Liu is assistant editor of Internal Audit 360°