Management Feedback Records
During the course of the audit certain matters may come to light that it is felt should be reported back to the client's management at the end of the audit. Audit Automation provides a facility to allow the audit staff to record in a central place matters that they feel are appropriate to include in the report and the manager and partner can then decide which items are to be included.
To enter details of a feedback record, select the Documents menu, [Feedback] Feedback records and the Management feedback records dialog will be displayed.
Management feedback dialog
In this will be listed all feedback records that have already been created for the client.
Adding a new feedback record
To add a new record, click on [Add] and a blank Points for management consideration dialog will be displayed.
Points for management consideration dialog
This form allows you to record the details of the matter that you consider worthy of reporting as follows:
| Title | A title describing the nature of the problem. This is shown in the list of management points to allow you to identify the items in the list. |
| Type of point | You can classify your record by type by entering the type in this field. Examples of types are Control, Records, Management, etc. As you add a new type of point for a client, the entry is inserted in the drop-down list and you can select a type from the list rather than type it in. This helps to ensure constancy of type descriptions. |
| Management schedule | As described below, Audit Automation will prepare a rough management report for you by listing your points for inclusion in the report to the client on schedules. You can then edit these to form the actual report in a format that can be attached to a letter to the management. You can have any number of schedules and this field allows you to specify which schedule the point should appear on. As with the type field, as you add a new schedule for a client, the entry is inserted in the drop-down list and you can select a schedule from the list rather than type it in. This helps to ensure constancy of schedule descriptions. |
| Severity | This field allows you to indicate how important you feel the point is. The acceptable entries are H for High, M for Medium and L for Low. You can either type the letter from the keyboard or select the entry from the drop-down list. |
| Observation | Enter here the details of the matter that you feel should be brought to the attention of the management. |
| Implication | Enter here the possible problems that could arise as a result of the matter. |
| Recommendation | Enter here the suggested remedy. |
| Management’s response/remedy | The clarity ISAs require that matters reported to management are followed up and the response/action of management to the matters recorded. This can be entered here. |
| Include in report to management | When the record is first created you will normally leave this checkbox without a tick. This state allows you to record the matter that you have discovered but does not trigger the item being reported to management. When the manager or partner reviews the file, they can decide if the matter should be reported to management and, if it is, tick the checkbox. |
| Matter remedied / not to be carried forward | This checkbox can be ticked to indicate that the matter has been remedied and hence should not be carried forward to the following year’s audit record. If it is not ticked, the record will be retained on a balance forward to the next audit. |
| Matter communicated to those charged with Governance | This checkbox is for information purposes only to allow you to record if the matter was also reported to those charged with Governance by placing a tick in it. |
After the fields have been completed, click on the [OK] button to store the record or the [Cancel] button to abandon your new entry. If you stored the record it will be added to the list.
Editing a feedback record
To edit a record, either double click on the entry in the Management feedback records dialog, or highlight the entry and click on [Edit]. The system will present the Points for management consideration dialog showing the details of the item selected. You are free to edit any of the details, and toggle the checkbox to indicate if the matter is to be included in the report to management.
After you have made your changes, click on [OK] to save the revised record. If you do not wish to save the changes that you have made, click on [Cancel].
Deleting a feedback record
To delete a record, highlight the record and click on [Delete]. The system will ask you to confirm that you wish to delete the highlighted record and, if you do it will remove the record from the list.
Creating the schedules
At the end of the audit when all the records have been reviewed and the records to be included in the report flagged, select the [Create] button. This will cause the system to compose the draft schedules to be attached to the management letter based on the following:
- One schedule will be created for each Management schedule defined and included in the report. Each schedule will be separated by a line.
- Within the schedule the points will be summarised sorted by severity within type of entry.
- For each point, the system will show the title followed by the observation, implication and recommendation.
If your system is set to use the internal word processor the schedule will be created using this, otherwise a Word document will be created. The name of the document is MANLETT. Note that when you select [Create] all points that are flagged for reporting are output to the document and are appended to whatever is currently in the document. You should therefore ensure that this document is empty before selecting this option, or only contains items that you have manually entered and have not come from the feedback records.
The following is an example of a schedule created in Word.
Editing the schedules
The document containing the schedules can be accessed by selecting the Documents menu, [Feedback] Schedules from the Pack window menu.