New Standards for Auditing Internal Control and the Use of Risk-Based Audits

Accounting and auditing have come a long way since the end of the Second World War. They now feature revamped, stricter, and enforceable codes of ethics as well as new and revised standards, more efficient professional bodies, and much better structured technical examinations which are getting increasingly more sophisticated. Because of these developments, auditing has evolved into a significant aid to implementation and maintenance of an internal control system. The 1990s have seen new audit, accounting, and management control concepts, such as: Internal control’s expanding horizonIntegrated auditing approachesDatabase mining for auditing reasonsRisk-based examinationsSelf-assessment in corporate governance andA tougher stance by regulators.