Accounting Controls and Reporting for Internal Auditors Training Course

Course overview

Internal auditors are expected to assess whether financial reporting can be trusted, but many audit findings stop at identifying exceptions rather than tracing the accounting risk, control failure, evidence gap, and reporting consequence. This course equips auditors to examine the controls behind journal entries, reconciliations, close activities, estimates, consolidations, and management reporting. Participants learn to challenge whether controls are designed appropriately, operating consistently, and supported by sufficient evidence for assurance reporting.

The course covers accounting-process risk assessment, COSO-based control evaluation, walkthroughs, control matrices, journal-entry testing, account-reconciliation review, variance analysis, financial-statement assertions, and data-enabled audit procedures. Participants practise linking process risks to assertions such as completeness, accuracy, cut-off, valuation, and presentation. They develop sharper skills in identifying management override indicators, evaluating evidence, distinguishing control deficiencies from isolated errors, and writing findings that explain financial-reporting exposure in business terms.

Instruction combines instructor-led technical sessions with realistic audit files, accounting scenarios, Excel-based testing, group control-design reviews, and report-writing workshops. Participants work through a simulated financial-close audit, from scoping and walkthroughs to testing and issue rating. They leave with a practical Accounting Controls Audit Pack containing a risk and control matrix, walkthrough template, testing programme, reconciliation-review checklist, analytics workbook, and financial-reporting audit finding template ready for adaptation to their organisation.

The programme is designed for internal auditors who already work with finance processes and need greater confidence in accounting controls, audit evidence, and reporting. It is also valuable for audit managers responsible for raising the quality, consistency, and financial relevance of assurance work.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map financial reporting risks to relevant financial-statement assertions and COSO control objectives
• Build a risk and control matrix for journal processing, reconciliations, and period-end close activities
• Conduct accounting-process walkthroughs that document systems, hand-offs, evidence, and control points
• Test journal entries using risk-based selection criteria, exception analysis, and management-override indicators
• Evaluate account reconciliations for timeliness, preparer-reviewer evidence, ageing, and unresolved differences
• Apply Excel and Power BI analytics to identify unusual postings, duplicate payments, aged balances, and variance outliers
• Rate accounting control deficiencies by likelihood, financial impact, root cause, and compensating controls
• Draft audit findings and assurance reports that state the accounting exposure, evidence, agreed action, and owner

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Internal Auditors — who assess finance processes and need stronger accounting-control testing methods
• Senior Internal Auditors — who lead fieldwork and must translate exceptions into defensible audit findings
• Internal Audit Managers — who review financial-control audits and require consistent scoping and reporting
• Financial Audit Specialists — who need deeper operational insight into close, reconciliation, and journal controls
• Risk and Controls Analysts — who monitor finance-control design, operation, and remediation evidence
• Finance Control Managers — who prepare for internal audit reviews of accounting and reporting processes

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience of internal audit, finance controls, or accounting-process reviews. They should understand the purpose of a general ledger, journal entries, trial balances, account reconciliations, accruals, and period-end close, and be able to work confidently with spreadsheets. Familiarity with risk-and-control matrices, audit evidence, and financial statements is helpful because exercises use these concepts from the first day. Participants do not need to be qualified accountants, certified internal auditors, data scientists, or Power BI specialists. No programming, ERP configuration, or external-audit experience is required.

Training methodology

The course uses short technical briefings followed by applied audit work. Participants analyse a simulated organisation’s general-ledger extracts, reconciliation files, close calendar, control narratives, and management reports. In small groups, they perform walkthroughs, construct risk and control matrices, select test samples, assess exceptions, and debate issue severity against defined criteria. The instructor demonstrates Excel and Power BI techniques for transaction screening and variance investigation. Each day closes with a structured workpaper or reporting output, culminating in an individual application plan for a live accounting audit assignment.

Course outline

Day 1: Financial reporting risk and audit scoping

• Financial reporting cycle from source transaction to published report
• Financial-statement assertions: completeness, accuracy, cut-off, valuation, and presentation
• COSO Internal Control Integrated Framework applied to accounting processes
• Risk assessment for general ledger, subledger, and consolidation activities
• Materiality, qualitative risk factors, and audit prioritisation
• Scoping accounting audits using process maps and risk universe inputs
• Risk and control matrix design for financial reporting controls

Workshop: Participants build a risk and control matrix for a period-end financial reporting process, linking risks, assertions, controls, owners, evidence, and test approaches.

Day 2: Walkthroughs and control testing in core accounting processes

• Walkthrough planning and end-to-end transaction tracing
• Narrative documentation, flowcharts, and control-point identification
• Segregation of duties in journal preparation, approval, and posting
• Journal-entry controls and management override risk indicators
• Accounts payable, receivable, and fixed-asset control interfaces
• Control design effectiveness versus operating effectiveness
• Audit evidence standards for system reports, approvals, and review controls

Workshop: Participants conduct a documented walkthrough of a journal-to-ledger scenario and produce a control narrative, flowchart, and preliminary testing plan.

Day 3: Reconciliations, close controls, and accounting estimates

• Account reconciliation components and minimum evidence requirements
• Reconciliation timeliness, ageing analysis, and exception escalation
• Preparers, reviewers, sign-off quality, and independent review challenge
• Period-end close calendars, dependency controls, and late-adjustment governance
• Accruals, provisions, reserves, and estimate-review controls
• Intercompany matching, elimination entries, and consolidation risks
• Variance analysis for management reporting and financial statement review

Workshop: Participants review a set of account reconciliations and close evidence, identify deficient controls, and prepare tested workpapers with exception conclusions.

Day 4: Data analytics for accounting control audits

• Audit data requirements for general-ledger and subledger testing
• Excel functions for duplicate, gap, sequence, and threshold testing
• Journal-entry analytics for unusual users, dates, accounts, and descriptions
• Benford’s Law as a risk indicator and its limitations
• Power BI dashboards for balance movements and variance outliers
• Sampling approaches for control testing and substantive exception investigation
• Documenting analytics logic, population completeness, and reproducible results

Workshop: Participants use a general-ledger dataset to identify high-risk journal entries and produce an analytics workpaper with exceptions, rationale, and follow-up tests.

Day 5: Deficiency evaluation and assurance reporting

• Classifying errors, control exceptions, and systemic control deficiencies
• Root-cause analysis using five whys and cause-and-effect mapping
• Assessing likelihood, financial impact, and compensating controls
• Issue rating criteria for financial reporting control weaknesses
• Writing findings with condition, criteria, cause, consequence, and action
• Communicating accounting risks to finance management and audit committees
• Follow-up testing and remediation validation planning

Workshop: Participants complete a simulated accounting-controls audit report and present one high-priority finding, evidence trail, issue rating, and management action plan.

Tools & standards covered

COSO Internal Control Integrated Framework, IIA Global Internal Audit Standards, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions