Auditing your business is just one of the tools you can use to streamline your operation and manufacturing procedures. This holds especially true if you’re dealing not with a local economy, but instead, the global marketplace of goods, services, and ideas. You should never choose an accounting and/or auditing service lightly.
Says the pros at the CST Group, one of several top Business Audit firms in Northern Virginia, business accounting in 2024 can be much more complex than in previous decades. Whether you’re meeting investor or lender requirements, seeking more confidence in your economic and financial data, or preparing for a future in the global economy, you need a sophisticated auditing firm that you can rely on for accurate financial data.
That said, what new global auditing standards can you expect in 2024? According to a recent report by Victoria Advocate, the IIA or the Institute of Internal Auditors, the global organization attributed with being the leader in the accounting and auditing certifications, research, standards, and technical guidance, has publicly revealed its new Global Internal Audit Standards.
These new Standards are said to have an impact on all businesses no matter their size, and from all major geographical regions. The Audit Standards were engineered to assist internal auditors and the organizations to which they are attached to better respond to today’s rapidly changing and complex business environment.
Some of the notable Standard changes include the following:
–The strengthening of governance frameworks for the purpose of improving the company’s responsiveness to swiftly changing business environments.
–Targeted guidance to better assist internal auditors operating in the public sector and for minor internal audit operations.
–A more flexible audit framework that can more easily adapt to unique challenges presently being faced by auditors in different geographical areas of the world.
–Targeted standards and guidance for critical areas such as cybersecurity.
Streamlined Standards
The new Audit Standards are designed to provide audit requirements, principles, and considerations for implementation in “a streamlined format.” In theory, they will assist with elevating the overall quality of internal auditing while enhancing the internal audit’s ultimate purpose as an essential partner to senior management and to the boards that oversee them.
Says the President and CEO of IIA, the newly established Global Internal Audit Standards are engineered to help with an urgent professional marketplace need. IIA has created a modern and dynamic set of Audit Standards that are intended to position the internal audit profession as a whole at the very forefront of a global business environment that is ever-changing, ever-evolving. This is said to be a bold and even visionary reimaging of the Audit Standards and they are also said form a foundation from which the audit profession of the 2020s and beyond will be constructed.
Early Adoption of the New Audit Standards
Says the Victoria Advocate, while the Global Internal Audit Standards will officially become fully effective as of early January 2025, one year after their initial release, the IIA is encouraging early adoption now in 2024. Said to be a key output of the PIIF Evolution, the Standards are considered a multi-year project engineered to guarantee that IIS’s International Professional Practices Framework will be providing the profession with the fluid, and agile guidance required to navigate the often complicated and challenging global audit landscape.
Says Naohiro Mouri, chairman of the International Internal Audit Standards Board (IIASB), The introduction of the new Global Internal Audit Standards represents a milestone in the internal audits industry that in essence, was still operating in the 20th century. But the Standards represent the culmination of years, if not decades, of feedback, outreach, research, experimentation, due diligence, and plain old blood, sweat, and tears. This is what was required to construct a new, visionary set of Audit Standards that will fundamentally become a direct reflection on the depth and breadth of the global auditing profession along with the needs and wants of the businesses they serve.
In the end, the IPPF Evolution will have engaged thousands of stakeholders, member bodies, internal audit practitioners, regulators, and more in what’s considered one of the most bold and ambitious undertakings in IIA’s long history. It’s important to keep in mind that the new Global Audit Standards take into account close to 20,000 comments and queries authored by 1,600 survey responses, plus face-to-face meetings with stakeholders. The new Standards are indeed a comprehensive global effort that promises a bold global business future.
