I’ve been approved to transfer to the Internal Audit department in the casino I work in. This is a great move as I will now be full-time, getting benefits, 401k, tuition reimbursement, etc.
So, what should I know? I have a degree in finance, so I know the basics of business organization, had some accounting classes, etc. I know quite a bit about the gaming industry in particular, since I’ve been a table games and poker dealer and have worked MIS as well.
But, what would be helpful to know before showing up? I have every confidence that I will be able to learn everything necessary for doing a good job. I’m just impatient and don’t want to start at square one when I get there. I start on the 15th.
Internal Auditing is too broad and too variable between companies and job positions to let us give you much of a response. Internal auditing is all about trying to verify what has happened, and to prevent both accidental and intentional loss of assets.
Internal auditors may do some or all of the following:
count or reconcile cash or inventory
double-check fixed assets for correct cataloguing and physical presence
verify that paychecks are written to real people for the correct amounts
cross-check purchase orders with inventory receipts
study employee interactions to verify that internal controls are effective.
I knew someone who worked at Amazon.com. Their whole job was to make sure that product returns and refunds were not being handled fraudulently and to approve any reconciliation discrepancies in the process. They were one of dozens of people who did this and nothing else all day, every day.
I’d recommend finding a good college textbook on auditing and start reading up on the whole subject. Even though you’ll be an internal auditor it would be good to have some background on auditing in general, planning the audit, internal controls analysis, types of audit risk, GAAS (standards), etc. I’m taking a course now and finding out how much there is to it but hey, it’s fun to learn and become knowledgable, right?
Is it financial auditing exclusively? Even if it is, I’d recommend keeping the world beyond the numbers in mind - sometimes, that “dead” passive is necesary in order to be able to do jobs in a reasonable time frame, or that project’s progress doesn’t move forward in a constant fashion because that’s the nature of the beast. You come from the world beyond the numbers, which gives you a head start over anybody who’s only worked there. You know what the numbers mean, and you’re familiar with the tricks people pull.
I realize my examples come from different kinds of environments, but casinos have building projects and rush jobs too
I’ve done internal auditing and if you report to someone over you, it’s a nightmare. When I worked for the coroporate office of a large hotel company, it was easy and fun. In addition to fiance, I audited practices, licenses etc.
It was fun as my job was to report it, and then if needed educate about correct procedures.
Another company had me do it but I reported to people who expected me to find what they wanted not what was. I still laugh at the regional GM telling me, if you report that you’ll find yourself, back at your old job. I said, “Fine, I didn’t want to do this anyway. No one does, that’s why I got it.” I reported it and asked to go back and they sent me back and nothing in the financials was ever fixed.
Long story short, if you have to audit anyone who has authority over you, it’ll be harder than if you are reporting to a corporate office.
Learn to think like a thief. A good auditor has to look for areas the company is at risk for loss or theft. In this case, primarily from other employees, with no exceptions, including the boss.
Internal controls should be designed to keep the company from losing money. I have done auditing in the past, and when you are asking people about what they do and what they don’t do, people get defensive about the company not trusting them. Internal controls are also there to protect the employees from themselves.
In a perfect world, where we trusted everybody, we wouldn’t store the cash in a safe or a vault, we would just leave it out on the counter and trust that nobody would take any for themselves. Eventually though, someone would have some event in their life where they needed cash and they would take some that was sitting on the counter, because it was so easy to get. If people see gaps in the controls that would allow to easily steal from the company, they might not do it today, but if push came to shove, they might be tempted to when they really needed the money.
So start thinking like a thief. If you needed money, are there ways that you could get it from the company, and those ways exist, think of ways to close the gaps.
Well, I know what I would tell the new internal auditor: nothing. Unless he or she asks a specific question, which I will answer in as few words as possible and with absolutely no elaboration.
Kind of like when I’m called as a witness in court.
