Explain the use of audit sampling methods that work for internal auditor within an organization.

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Explain the use of audit sampling methods that work for internalauditor within an organization.

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There are explaination of sampling internal audit Auditors know it may not be practical to examine all available evidence due to its volume and dispersal In those cases a sample is selected to evaluate against the audit criteria and help develop the audit conclusion The risk is that the sample may not be representative of the total set of people documents practices and records being assessed As a result the audit conclusion may be different than if the auditor had examined the whole population So we may overaudit by taking samples that are too large and waste time and resources Or we may underaudit by taking samples that are too small and end up not detecting numerous nonconformities It is important to apply the appropriate use of sampling since it is closely related to the confidence that people will place on the audit conclusion Sample Definition A sample is a small part of anything intended as representative of the whole It may not be practical to examine all available data For example records may be too numerous or dispersed or may be too time consuming or costly So sampling selects less than 100 of the items to obtain and evaluate evidence to form an audit conclusion The Goal is confidence that the audit objectives can be met The Risk is that the samples may not be representative of the entire population The Conclusion may be different than if you were able to examine the whole population Audit Principle ISO 190112011 Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems describes an Evidencebased Approach that is based on sampling This audit principle in clause 4f uses a rational method for reaching reliable and reproducible audit conclusions It states that audits are conducted during a finite period of time and with finite resources so audit evidence should be verifiable and based on samples of available information The principle concludes by saying that the appropriate use of sampling is closely related to the confidence that can be placed in the audit conclusions Audit Guidance The ISO 190112011 auditing guidance standard also states that audit procedures should address the use of appropriate sampling methods 535 Does your audit procedure cover sampling Most audit procedures I review do not Lead auditors should be aware of sampling techniques when preparing the audit plan 6321 and the audit plan should cover the extent of the sampling needed to obtain sufficient audit evidence 6322 Work documents may include a specific sampling plan 634 More Audit Guidance But ISO 190112011 is not through on the sampling subject It also states in 642 that the opening meeting should clarify that the audit evidence will be based on a sample of information Later it states that information should be collected by means of appropriate audit sampling 646 The closing meeting should advise participants that the audit evidence was collected based on information samples 649 Then in the Auditor Competence section it states that auditors should understand the appropriateness and consequences of sampling techniques 7232 The ISO 190112011 edition even added an Annex B3 with two pages devoted to audit sampling The 2002 edition of ISO 19011 only mentioned samples and sampling 9 times The current 2011 edition mentions those terms 68 times Think audit sampling was considered important Sampling Steps Audit sampling typically involves these six steps 1 First establish the objectives of the sampling plan eg you may want to reduce the audit disruption yet have a representative sample See Answer

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