Internal Audit
Under the preview of Internal Audit ARK along with Audit also covers Fraud Investigation and Concurrent Audit.
Internal Auditing is an independent consulting activity designed to improve and add value to an organization's operations. Internal Auditing is a catalyst for improving an organization's governance, risk management and management controls by providing insight and recommendations based on analyses and assessments of data and business processes.
ARK holds an experience of more than two decades in the area of Internal Auditing .The Internal Auditing team at ARK has conducted many Internal Audits for its clients and have been able to help their organizations in the following ways-
• Improving the organization's governance
• Risk management
• Management control over efficiency & effectiveness of operations
• Safeguarding of its assets
• Reliability in Financial and Management reporting
• Compliance with laws and regulations
• Conducting proactive fraud audits to identify potentially fraudulent acts
• Participating in fraud investigations under the direction of fraud investigation professionals
• Conducting post investigation fraud audits to identify control breakdowns and establish financial loss
• Advising Management and the Board of Directors for better execution of their responsibilities.
FRAUD INVESTIGATION –Fraud is a misrepresentation or the concealment of a material fact with the intent and result that is acted upon by another to his loss or detriment. It may also be defined as the use of one's occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the organization's resources or assets.
Fraud in an organization can be defined in many ways but it primarily contains four elements:
• The misrepresentation of a material fact
• Knowledge of the perpetrator that the factual misrepresentation was false
• The misrepresentation was made with the intent that it be relied upon by someone else
• The victim (the part or parties relying upon the factual misrepresentation) did rely on it and, as a result, incurred a loss
THE VARIOUS CATEGORIES OF OCCUPATIONAL FRAUD ARE-
• Asset Misappropriation involving false invoicing, payroll fraud or skimming
• Corruption involving receiving or offering bribes, extort funds from third parties or engage in conflicts of interest.
• Financial Statements Fraud involves the intentional misstatement or omission of material information from the organization's financial reports, reporting of fictitious revenues or the concealment of expenses or liabilities in order to make an organization appear more profitable than it really is.
Fraud detection is, or should be a continuous management function. Fraud detection and prevention should not be an occasional exercise, but rather a routine aspect of business.
ARK has also been providing the service of Fraud Investigation to its clients to help them run their operations smoothly without incurring Financial losses. ARK's mission and objective in this is the deterrence, detection and prevention of occupational fraud and abuse.
The procedure ARK follows in order to undertake the Fraud Investigation for its clients who are need of such services is-
• Undertakes Fraud Risk Assessment of the business or organization to disclose areas of risk or concern.
• Designs a Professional proactive fraud deterrence and prevention program in accordance with the organization's need
• Conducts a Professional fraud examination to determine whether fraud occurred, who may have been responsible and the amount of the loss.
• Reporting the Fraud and helping the organization to act against the one's held responsible for such fraud so that the organization does not suffer further losses.
CONCURRENT AUDIT – Concurrent audit is a systematic and timely examination of financial transcations on a regular basis to ensure accuracy, compliance with procedure and guidelines.
Concurrent audit is undertaken to reduce the time gap between occurrences of transaction and its checking. It serves the purpose of effective internal control.The main focus while conducting Concurrent audit it to ensure that transactions are not dealt with in routine but in adherence with the systems and procedures laid down.
It aims to ensure that the transaction or decisions are within the policy parameters laid down, they do not violate the instructions or policy prescriptions, and are within the delegated authority and in compliance with the terms and conditions.
ARK's aim in undertaking Concurrent Audit is-
• To find out any violation of procedures
• Ascertaining whether sanction for advances and expenditures is taken from competent authority
• Examining books of accounts records and registers to ensure that they are maintained in accordance with the prescribed systems
• Ensuring compliance of laid down systems, procedures and policies
• Adequate measures are being taken in advance to prevent future frauds, etc., to avoid difficulties, which may arise
• To check cash, securities,.etc., to ensure that they are in due order and in agreement with books
• Detection and arresting of any leakage of income, if any
• Evaluating the quality of customer services provided and giving useful suggestions
• Assessing overall performance of the branch while assessing productivity and profitability
• To offer useful comments on the basis of audit conducted
• Reporting any inefficiency in any operational level
• Reporting any irregularity in working which may result in financial or other loss to branch.
• Reporting to appropriate levels of managment for appropriate actions for remedial measures.
• Scrutinizing the completeness of documents submitted for availing advances and other facilities
• Physical checking of stocks and other assets at relevants places
• Follow up with authorities to ensure timely rectification of irregularities reported which were not rectified on the spot
• Verify prompt and regular submission of the periodical and statutory returns.