Organisations Overseeing through the Audit Committee

The article addresses the main responsibilities of audit committees within organizations, starting from the need for knowledge and understanding of the organization by all members of the audit committee, which must consider both internal factors and external factors. Among internal factors, the organization's internal control system is one of the key elements in the financial reporting process, the concern of maintaining an appropriate control environment. Audit committee members should ensure that management gives the organization a "bon ton", "leading tone", developing an organizational culture that promotes the attitude of compliance and internal control findings and conclusions which help to provide default quality of financial reporting. Good practice issues of Anglo-Saxon and internal control assessment tools for organizations are presented further. Particular attention is paid to risk management and specifically the risk of fraud by the media appetite for such issues can easily affect the organization's brand. The second part of the article discusses the influences of financial failures of recent decades on corporate governance system of organizations in the Anglo-Saxon environment. Particular attention is paid to how the audit committees, these "living consciences" of organizations have adapted their roles and behavior to capture, monitor and influence the overall management culture of organizations.