Accounting: Public Sector Auditing

What is the view or perspective on the significance of assessing risk in the internal control process? Please raise thoughtful questions, analyze relevant issues, build on others' ideas, synthesize across readings and discussions, expand the class' perspective, and appropriately challenge assumptions and perspectives. (See below to get an idea.)

The text describes a person with good judgment at assessing risk as having the following characteristics, "discernment, reasoning and rationality, perception, penetrating mind, and insight" (Ives, Hancox 2014). A person with discernment can help set a tone at the top, or help influence the control environment of an organization. The manager who is discerning can influence sections of the organization that may be important to have stronger internal controls that no one else notices.

A manager who has reasoning and perception can also set up good monitoring processes and checklists for the organization.They can perceive the issues that could cause a negative event in the organization and create monitors to see if that perception is correct.The real discernment of the manager is important to analyzing the severity of the risk. A manager or management team that has a penetrating mind, may be able to set up an information system that is really effective in an area that didn't have one previously.Others, may have seen that area as a high risk, but were unable to put effective monitoring controls in place with manual events that the manager was able to solution using an information system that could overcome the obstacles in that area.

These assessments of risk can be a judgement call of the manager or an a simple insight or feeling.These insights can help protect the organization by being proactive. Having the foresight to see the red flags can help avoid a disaster that a manager who didn't have the perception to see the flags might encounter.This ounce of prevention can pay dividends if the intuition of the managers shows results from the risk assessment. Those results could be increased efficiency or as simple as a reduction in risk factors to the overall company.A manager or team that is risk aware at all times, can use that awareness of risk to help improve or implement other internal controls throughout the organization.

Reference:

Ives, Martin & Hancox, David (2014) The Theory of Government Performance Auditing, Albany, NYwww.davehancox.com

(Links to an external site.)