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Internal control, as defined by accounting and auditing, is a process for assuring of an organization's objectives in operational effectiveness and efficiency, reliable financial reporting, and compliance with laws, regulations and policies. A broad concept, internal control involves everything that controls risks to an organization.
The COSO framework defines internal control as a process, carried out by the board of directors, the administration and other personnel of an entity, designed to provide "reasonable security" with respect to the achievement of objectives in operations, financial reporting, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
COSO Internal control: integrated framework: In September 1992, the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) issued a report titled Internal control: integrated framework, which provided a definition of internal control and a framework for evaluating and improving internal control over systems.
Entity-level controls, along with all other internal controls should be evaluated by independent auditors according to SAS 109 (AU 314) issued by the AICPA. SAS 109 stipulates that "auditors should obtain an understanding of the five components of internal control sufficient to assess the risk of material misstatement of the financial ...
Control is a function of management that helps to check errors and take corrective actions. This is done to minimize deviation from standards and ensure that the stated goals of the organization are achieved in a desired manner.
A control environment, also called "Internal control environment", is a term of financial audit, internal audit and Enterprise Risk Management.It means the overall attitude, awareness and actions of directors and management (i.e. "those charged with governance") regarding the internal control system and its importance to the entity.
Separation of duties is a key concept of internal controls. Increased protection from fraud and errors must be balanced with the increased cost/effort required. In essence, SoD implements an appropriate level of checks and balances upon the activities of individuals. R. A. Botha and J. H. P. Eloff in the IBM Systems Journal describe SoD as follows.
It serves to require the auditor to understand the client's accounting system and internal control system and to assess control risk and inherent risk. The objective is to determine the nature, timing and extent of substantive procedures in order to reduce audit risk to an acceptable low level.