Control for It

When a company hires a controller, it is expect that the controller, “is responsible for the company’s financial statements, general ledger, cost accounting, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, budgeting, tax compliance, and various special analyses” (Averkamp, 2007).   One important item that a controller is in charge of is the internal controls of a company.   Internal controls are systematic procedures that are put in place to promote efficiency and to safeguard assets and prevent fraud.   Throughout this paper, we are going to identify the internal control reporting options, create criteria in which the options may be evaluated and review the different internal controls that can be used for Information Technology (IT),
When creating reports for internal controls, there are a few different options that are available, which are:
• Attestation Engagements,
o SOP 07-2
• Findings and Recommendations,
• SAS 70,
• SAS 94, and
• Procedure Reports
With each of these reports, companies are looking for different at ways that will help with the improvement of risk management.
Attestation engagements deal with examining, reviewing or performing agreed upon procedures regarding a specific matter.   This engagement can include different topic, such as:
• “an entity’s internal control over financial reporting;
• an entity’s compliance with requirements of specified laws, regulations, rules, contracts, or grants;
• the effectiveness of an entity’s internal control over compliance with specified requirements, such as those governing the bidding for, accounting for, and reporting on grants and contracts;
• management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A) presentation;
• prospective financial statements or pro-forma financial information;
• the reliability of performance measures;
• final contract cost;
• allowability and reasonableness of proposed contract amounts; and
• specific procedures performed on a subject matter” (U.S. Government... [continues]

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