Welcome to IA IS LIT—career development and fresh perspectives for new and aspiring internal auditors.
Your first audit can come with an intimidating vocabulary, unfamiliar processes and the pressure to ask the right questions. A useful place to begin is much simpler: become curious about how the business works.
Understand the purpose before the process.
Before you study a control, ask what the team is trying to achieve. Who is the customer? What has to happen for the process to succeed? What would make a missed step matter? These questions give your audit work a business context.
Ask for a real example.
When someone describes a process, invite them to walk you through a recent transaction. Follow it from the first request to the final outcome. Notice who acts, what evidence is retained and where decisions require judgment. A walkthrough becomes more useful when it connects a description to what actually happened.
Separate what you heard from what you verified.
A helpful habit is to keep three columns in your notes: what the process owner explained, what evidence you reviewed and what still needs clarification. This makes gaps easier to spot and helps you avoid treating an explanation as a completed test.
Write for someone who was not in the room.
Your documentation should explain the question you were answering, the work you performed, the evidence you used and the conclusion you reached. If a reviewer has to reconstruct your thinking, there is probably an opportunity to make the story clearer.
Make feedback part of the work.
Ask for feedback early, while you can still use it. Bring your reviewer a focused question: “Is the link between this risk and my test clear?” or “What evidence would make this conclusion stronger?” Specific questions are easier to act on than a general request to review everything.
Try this on your next engagement.
Choose one process. Explain its objective in a single sentence, identify one meaningful risk and describe how the control is meant to address it. Then ask what evidence would demonstrate that the control operated. That small exercise connects the business, the risk and your work.
You do not need to have every answer on day one. Build the habit of asking thoughtful questions, following the evidence and being clear about what you know.
IA IS LIT explores audit foundations, career growth, communication and the future of the profession. More perspectives are on the way.