Internal Audit: “A Necessary Evil†or A Creator of Added Value?

The present work focuses on the problem of creating added value by the department (service) of internal audit. This basically is a creator of new value by saving resources and avoiding losses due to disturbing factors that may appear at a certain moment in the entity’s activity. The concept of “added value†in the internal audit activity is a controversial concept and the auditor is an “independent valuator†of the efficient use of resources inside the entity. The specialty literature and the practice allow the possibility to identify premises and factors on which the performance of the internal audit function depends on. A method to measure the performances of the internal audit department inside the entities is the “Synoptic scoreboard†. This instrument allows identifying the fields the internal audit can bring an added value to the entity and the impact of the internal audit function on the performances, including the financial ones.