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Corporate Fraud Handbook by Joseph T. Wells: Summary for Internal Auditors
The fifth edition of the ACFE founder’s handbook, summarised for auditors: the three categories, every scheme with a detection test and a control, the 2024 and 2026 ACFE…
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24–36 minutes -
Financial Shenanigans by Schilit, Perler and Engelhart: Summary for Auditors
The fourth edition of Schilit’s catalogue of accounting gimmicks, summarised for auditors: the fifteen shenanigans, the cases and what regulators found, the forensic mindset, a vocabulary, an audit…
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27–40 minutes -
The Phoenix Project: Summary and What It Means for IT Auditors
Kim, Behr and Spafford’s DevOps novel, summarised for auditors: the story, the Three Ways, the four types of work, the audit scoping sub-plot, a vocabulary, an IT audit…
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19–28 minutes -
Engagement-Level Risk Assessment: From Process Understanding to Test Plan
The annual risk assessment picks what to audit; the engagement-level risk assessment decides what to test once you are there, and it is the step most fieldwork skips…
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18–27 minutes -
Control Design Principles: What Makes a Control Actually Work, With Three Redesigns
Most controls are not designed; they accumulate. This guide gives the principles for designing one deliberately: a control objective stated as the error it must catch, precision matched…
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19–28 minutes -
SOX for Control Owners: What Testers Ask For, What Each Phase Means and How to Pass Testing
If you own a key control, SOX testing will arrive every year whether or not anyone explains it. This guide is written for the control owner, not the…
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21–31 minutes -
TeamMate vs Workiva: Audit-First Platform Against the SOX and Reporting Suite
TeamMate and Workiva compared for internal audit and SOX: where each vendor’s workflow, pricing model, public-sector standing, and SOX and AI features actually differ, a side-by-side scorecard, fit…
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22–33 minutes -
Optro vs Workiva: Which Internal Audit and SOX Platform Fits Your Team?
How Optro (formerly AuditBoard) and Workiva compare for internal audit and SOX: ownership and the same-day March 2026 relaunches, where their workflows, SOX, analytics and AI differ, a…
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22–32 minutes -
DataSnipper Review for Internal Audit and SOX: Evidence Linking, Agents and Price
What DataSnipper is and how its Excel-native evidence linking and SOX agents work, the Alwin agent platform launched in September 2026, the scorecard and fit by situation, the…
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25–37 minutes -
Workiva Alternatives for Internal Audit and SOX: 9 Options Compared
Nine Workiva alternatives for internal audit and SOX, Optro, TeamMate, Diligent One, Onspring, LogicGate, Hyperproof, DataSnipper, Archer and SAI360, compared on price evidence and rating, plus what Workiva’s…
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20–30 minutes -
Workiva Review for Internal Audit and SOX: What the GRC Relaunch Changed
What Workiva is after the March 2026 GRC relaunch, the audit module stage by stage, SOX and controls, the named AI agents and their data-use terms, a 12-area…
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23–35 minutes -
SOX Compliance Software Compared: Optro, Workiva, TeamMate, Diligent and DataSnipper
This guide covers what SOX 404 software must do beyond general audit management, compares Optro, Workiva, TeamMate, Diligent, DataSnipper, Hyperproof, Archer and ServiceNow IRM on price evidence and…
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19–28 minutes -
Key vs Non-Key Controls: Rationalizing What You Test
How internal auditors and SOX teams decide which controls are key: what makes a control key under auditing standards and in practice, key controls outside SOX, six criteria…
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18–28 minutes -
Entity-Level Controls: Auditing the Controls Above the Processes
A complete guide to entity-level controls for internal auditors: what they are, the categories the PCAOB lists, the difference between indirect, monitoring and precise controls, examples mapped to…
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18–28 minutes -
Compensating Controls: When Plan B Is Good Enough, and When It Is Not
A precise guide to compensating controls for internal auditors and control owners: the definition and the vocabulary around it (mitigating, redundant, complementary), where compensating controls come up, the…
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19–29 minutes -
Control Ownership: Making Someone Actually Accountable
What a control owner is accountable for, how owner, performer, reviewer and monitor differ, how controls become orphans and a simple analytic to find them, an ownership register,…
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18–28 minutes -
How to Audit Account Reconciliations as a Program: Standard, Tests and a Worked Engagement
Account reconciliations audited as a program: what a reconciliation proves, a ten-control matrix, the standard a complete reconciliation must meet, a 14-test program, population analytics, and Lakeshore Bancorp’s…
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20–29 minutes -
How to Audit the Financial Close: Speed, Accuracy and Control, With a Worked Engagement
The financial close audited as a process: the eight stages and the two clocks, a twelve-control matrix, a close calendar standard, a 14-test program, the analytics that profile…
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20–30 minutes -
How to Audit Fixed Assets: Existence, Capitalization, Disposals and a Worked Engagement
The internal auditor’s fixed asset audit: the lifecycle and its risks, a ten-control starter matrix, a 14-test program with two-direction counts and both-way capitalization tests, the register analytics,…
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19–29 minutes -
How to Audit Order-to-Cash End to End: The Integrated Audit and a Worked Engagement
The integrated order-to-cash audit: the six handoffs where fragment audits go blind, a cross-stage risk map and twelve-control matrix, a 14-test program, the analytics that join the stages,…
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20–30 minutes -
How to Audit Procure-to-Pay End to End: The Integrated P2P Audit and a Worked Engagement
The integrated procure-to-pay audit: the five handoffs where stage audits go blind, a cross-stage risk map and twelve-control matrix, a 14-test program, the analytics that join the stages,…
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23–34 minutes -
Financial Statement Fraud: How the Numbers Get Cooked, and Who Should Catch It
The financial reporting branch of the fraud tree: the five mechanisms and their mirror images, who commits it and the pressures that produce it, the cases from Enron…
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20–29 minutes -
How to Audit Cash Management and Bank Reconciliations: Controls, Not Rituals
The internal auditor’s guide to cash management and bank reconciliations: the cash structure and where it fails, the seven properties of a reconciliation that is a control rather…
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19–29 minutes -
How to Audit Inventory: Counts, Costing and Shrink, With a 14-Test Program
The internal auditor’s guide to inventory: the six handoffs where the record and the stock part company, a ten-control starter matrix, a fourteen-test program, how to observe a…
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20–30 minutes -
How to Audit Accounts Receivable and Collections: Risks, Controls and a 14-Test Program
The internal auditor’s guide to accounts receivable and collections: where the risk concentrates from invoice to cash, a ten-control starter matrix, a fourteen-test program with sample sizes, the…
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20–29 minutes -
Manual, Automated, and IT-Dependent Manual Controls: Testing Implications of Each
The three control natures defined by what can fail, their testing implications side by side (design test, operating test, sample sizes, ITGC reliance, evidence, roll-forward), a five-question classification…
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20–30 minutes -
How to Audit Active Directory and Entra ID: The Identity Backbone
The directory is the control plane of every other control. The method for auditing Active Directory and Entra ID: why it is in scope of everything, the privileged…
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20–30 minutes -
Testing Automated Controls and System Configurations: A Non-IT Auditor’s Method
How to test the controls a system performs without anyone watching: the seven types of automated control and where their logic lives, why one well-designed test can cover…
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21–31 minutes -
How to Audit IT Change Management: From Ticket to Production
The working method for auditing IT change management: the ten controls and their COBIT, ITIL, NIST and COSO references, why the population must come from the production system…
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26–39 minutes -
How to Write a Control Description: Well-Written vs Poor Examples
Who, what, when, how, and evidence, plus precision and exception handling: the formula for a control description a stranger can test, ten poor descriptions rewritten, the five-question testability…
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19–28 minutes