An insight into Business Process Audits for Organizations
Every company is mandated to perform an occasional objective examination and evaluation of its financial and operational performance. Even though it may be a legal requirement in some places, auditing provides the company with a wider eye on the direction of its growth so that it is able to make important decisions that would otherwise be impossible. In normal circumstances they are usually an internal audit tasked with aligning systems to meet legal requirements. This auditor is answerable to the company management. An external auditor on the other hand reports its findings to the government functionaries such as the revenue authority and is commonly called in, either when serious anomalies are reported in the financial and operational books or as a random operation to keep companies on their financial management. By and large, entities are ordinarily not comfortable when a third party auditors visit but rejoice when the findings of the audits are sound. This is due to the negative ramifications that may result upon poor findings; a rebuke by the authority or, in the case of an internal audit, a reorganization that affects positions of individuals.
An organization that hopes to thrive in its environment and industry must seasonally call in the expertise of a qualified auditing house for not just an audit of its finances but activities and systems in order to assess its alignment with the core vision of the company, its mission and further down, the long term strategies that the management has laid down to achieve its mandates to shareholders as owners of the enterprise. A thorough audit, even though nerve wracking comes with the advantage of injecting confidence in all individuals involved in the company. A comparative analysis of business performance versus management objectives, an assessment of business processes, risks and benchmarking activities and performance with industry standards is key in such audits. As such the auditors will look closely into aspects that include capital management, industrial-specific processes, sales and marketing approaches, fiscal management and human resources management. No audit can be more inclusive than this.
For a majority of businesses, existence with a profit motive is at the core, and if the performances of activities towards this goal are optimized and kept in line with legal requirements, the management will have achieved its goals on behalf of shareholders. The all-important green light will thus bring a confidence that sets the organization for greater achievements ahead. Hiring a credible audit firm that will seasonally perform its tasks accordingly should be seen more as partnering than otherwise. The hiring company should be keen on who they bring in, considering that it may be a long term affair with assurances of excellent performances along the way. Because the company seeks efficient performance of its systems it must verify that the prospective audit entity meets the same standards of efficiency that it hopes to infuse in its client organization. In this regard, a careful assessment of testimonials is significant; these must be verifiable, especially for organizations within the same industry that are in their clientele list.