Should Internal auditors be seen as business partners?

Internal auditors need to be able to get to the heart of what is happening in an organization else they will not be deemed be adding value. This means that they need to be approachable and open minded, so people can tell them things they don’t think others will want to hear, but they should at all-time validate all the claims, seek the truth and not take things at face value. Auditor should only trust facts and data; verifies everything and pushes past convenient interpretations of the business to find underlying issues.

These should be done carefully to ensure that a notion that auditors are constantly seeking out things that are not working does not develop among the auditees.

This means that auditors should also take note of improvements and good practice that have been put in place.

Internal audit is often seen as the internal police. Internal audit should build the bridge to be a real business partner, while still remaining independent. It takes a great deal of collaboration with management to achieve business goals and internal audit objectives. This in turn will provide a return on value beyond just compliance effort.