What Is the Secret to Internal Audits?
It’s audit season here on the Compli blog. Earlier this month, we explored 5 key questions for internal audits, and before that, we explained what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking for in an organization’s audit program. Oh, and we also squeezed in a question about audit reporting and consumer finance laws.
Phew, that’s a lot of audits. You could even say we’re auditing the topic of audits—probing the subject, evaluating what strategies work and don’t work, and making recommendations for the future.
Well, we have another one for all you audit lovers (we know you’re out there). And like the three articles I mentioned above, this blog post is adapted from our recent webinar: Internal Audit Insider Tips.
Audits, Meet Automation
At the heart of any internal audit is data. But how easily accessible is your compliance data?
At Compli, we’ve found that numerous companies struggle to access the essential data they need to conduct effective internal audits. This usually means that the organization’s ongoing monitoring process is suffering as well. Without detailed, up-to-the-minute visibility into your organization’s compliance processes, an audit isn’t really an investigation at all, but mere ceremony.
Automation is what powers an effective audit. It allows you to spend your time analyzing data rather than digging around to collect it. With automation, you can create consistent processes, so that each activity is assigned a plan to ensure it is routed to the correct role within your organization, goes through the correct approval and review processes, and is date- and time-stamped—giving you a defensible audit each and every time.
Automation allows you to stay flexible, so you can quickly pivot to remain compliant with evolving regulations and organizational needs. As the regulatory landscape changes, and as your organization matures and grows within that landscape, an automated compliance management system gives you the flexibility to adjust in response to any audit findings. With an automated CMS, you can pull together critical information in an instant to provide defensible proof of compliance to regulators, lawyers, external auditors, key stakeholders, executives, your board, and so on. Your board and executive team can spend less time worrying about what might be happening, so they have more time to focus on making things happen proactively. Ultimately, it means better communication and decision-making—which is precisely what organizations need before, during, and after audits.
Our automated compliance platform, Compligo, is designed to serve as the backbone of your entire CMS. We’ve engineered to Compligo to fulfill the demands of both external examiners (such as the CFPB) and your internal organizational leadership.
As it relates to your compliance program, Compligo eliminates guesswork, in the following ways:
- Our platform ensures your staff understands the policies, guidelines, and procedures that bear on their roles in your organization.
- Through advanced reporting, Compligo gives you the capability to assess the status of your organization and provide defensible proof of compliance, whenever necessary.
- Finally, automated compliance makes it possible for your organization to not only track individual consumer complaints, but also identify trends and high-risk areas—before they grow into bigger problems that affect your reputation and your bottom line.
