The Future Of Internal Audit

Over the years, the purpose of internal audit has continued to evolve and expand, managing to successfully transition from its traditional function of monitoring financial statements to the strategic and operational efforts of checking the organization’s compliance at all levels. Regarding the future, it is assumed that the internal audit will play an important advisory role, becoming an important catalyst of business development, focusing organizations on emerging risks. This transformation of the whole internal system, consisting in both control and audit, which seeks to promote a risk-centered organizational culture, is in the process of evolution, but it complexity, the conflicts of interest, the little understanding of most companies when it comes to implementing such a system as well as various issues of credibility, limit the pace of development for now. Our belief, however, is that this slow evolution is favorable for the alternative purpose of building the functions of the new internal control and audit on a more credible and relevant foundation for the organizational management.