New Global Internal Audit Standards: Ensure Compliance & Efficiency with Eye2Scan

The Global Internal Audit Standards are live, representing a significant shift in governance and compliance requirements for organizations worldwide. Released by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) early 2024, these updated standards replace the 2017 framework and establish a stronger foundation for internal audit practices. For organizations, this means not only adhering to the new requirements but also leveraging them as an opportunity to enhance process quality and operational performance.

Eye2Scan positions itself as a key partner for internal auditors navigating these changes. By aligning its advanced features with the updated standards, Eye2Scan enables organizations to stay compliant while improving efficiency and delivering greater value. This article explores how Eye2Scan’s data analytics and automation capabilities can help you adapt to the new framework and drive results in your internal audit processes.

Aligning Eye2Scan with the Global Internal Audit Standards

Eye2Scan is fully aligned with the core principles and mission outlined in the new standards, which state: 

« Internal auditing strengthens the organization’s ability to create, protect, and sustain value by providing the  board and management with independent, risk-based, and objective assurance, advice, insight, and foresight. » 

Eye2Scan empowers internal auditors to safeguard and enhance organizational value by enabling them to focus on high-value tasks. This solution automates compliance with evolving regulations, including global anti-corruption laws. Beyond routine accounting controls, Eye2Scan supports strategic initiatives, such as inventory optimization. By adopting a risk-based approach and integrating with Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) tools, Eye2Scan links risks, Key Risk Indicators (KRIs), and controls, enabling proactive and factual risk management. Its direct data access ensures unbiased and systematic analysis, fostering investigation integrity.

Principle 2: Maintain Objectivity

The second principle emphasize the importance of maintaining objectivity in all internal audit activities. Automated data analysis supports this by providing clear, consistent, and objective insights into internal processes. Eye2Scan ensures impartiality by minimizing human intervention and delivering uniform comparisons.

Standard 3.1: Competency

Internal auditors face challenges in staying updated with evolving regulations, adapting to diverse industries, and maintaining high competency levels. This is compounded by the demands of Boards, Risk, and Compliance departments.

Eye2Scan addresses this challenge with a comprehensive library of pre-programmed controls covering key business areas based on best practices in different industries and global anti-corruption regulations. This turnkey solution helps auditors build proficiency quickly and respond to varied requests. Additionally, Eye2Scan offers tailored support through a Customer Success Manager with expertise in accounting, auditing, or internal control. This expert guidance helps customize controls, refine strategies, and explore innovative approaches.

Standard 9.1: Understanding Governance, Risk Management, and Control

Standard 9.1 highlights the critical alignment between governance, risk management, and control processes. Eye2Scan facilitates collaboration among these areas by providing a unified platform for data analysis, strengthening the three lines of defense. By linking risk frameworks, KRIs, and controls, Eye2Scan supports proactive risk identification and mitigation. For instance, it helps predict significant errors, compliance issues, or fraud, enabling more efficient resource allocation.

Standard 10.3:  Technological Resources

Despite being often neglected, assessing and optimizing technology resources is crucial in today’s audit landscape. While tools like Excel and Business Intelligence (BI) solutions are common, they often fall short in addressing high data volume,  data integrity, complex processes, and security challenges. Generic data analysis tools can provide results, but how can you ensure proper follow-up on detected anomalies? With Eye2Scan workflows, you can automatically notify process owners, who can justify discrepancies in the data by completing a customized questionnaire and attaching supporting documents. All of this is tracked by the software to generate a detailed log report - required by regulators.

Eye2Scan bridges this gap with over 80 ready-to-use controls, deployable in under two weeks on SAP. Its workflow features automatically notify process owners of anomalies, allowing them to provide justifications and supporting documentation. This streamlined approach ensures comprehensive anomaly tracking and detailed reporting. By investing in specialized technology like Eye2Scan, audit teams can enhance productivity and focus on strategic, high-value activities.

Standard 14.1: Gathering Information for Analyses and Evalusations

Eye2Scan directly connects to ERP systems, ensuring the integrity and reliability of collected data. This capability in addition to the tailored managing rules and the preset controls support the requirements of Standard 14.1, enabling systematic and standardized controls across entities and business units. For example, Eye2Scan facilitates the comparison of performance across multiple countries or B.U. using specific control frameworks, ensuring consistency and accuracy.

Standard 14.2: Analyses and Potential Engagement Findings

By automating accounting and operational controls with reliable data, the tool enables auditors to quickly identify areas that require deeper analysis during the audit. For example, by using Eye2Scan before the audit mission, auditors can already pinpoint key focus areas to investigate, optimizing their on-site time. Additionally, Eye2Scan allows process owners to be involved ahead of the audit, enabling more thorough investigations during interviews and thereby enhancing the auditor's credibility.

Standard 14.3: Evaluation of Findings

Eye2Scan simplifies the identification of anomalies within a high volume of datasets, providing auditors with a complete and reliable view of controls while avoiding false positives. Automated alerts link anomalies to process owners, enabling faster analysis and better resource allocation. Additionally, integrated trend analysis helps auditors assess risk probabilities and potential impacts, leading to more precise and actionable conclusions. Thus, Eye2Scan facilitates a more precise and in-depth evaluation of potential audit findings, strengthening the internal audit team’s ability to deliver useful and relevant insights to organizational leadership and risk management.

Standard 15.2: Confirming the Implementation of Recommendations or Action Plans

Standard 15.2 emphasizes the importance of monitoring the implementation of recommendations after the investigation. Eye2Scan allows audit controls to be transformed into continuous monitoring processes with minimal effort. Both departments using the same tools will also facilitates the monitoring of those recommendation during the next audit.

It also inks recommended actions to risk-mapping tools, enabling real-time tracking of progress and the impact of corrective actions on KRIs. This feature ensures rigorous follow-up on recommendations and provides a proactive approach to performance monitoring.

The Global Internal Audit Standards are now shaping the future of internal auditing, requiring organizations to align with new best practices for governance, risk management, and compliance. Eye2Scan offers a powerful, compliant solution to help auditors not only meet these requirements but also transform their operations with greater accuracy, efficiency, and insight. With Eye2Scan, you can ensure continuous monitoring, proactive risk management, and actionable audit findings, all while enhancing organizational value.

Contact us today to discover how Eye2Scan can support your organization’s success in meeting the demands of the new standards.