RPA in Internal Audit – Probotiq Solutions

The game-changing RPA technology is one of the most exciting and existing developments in Business Process Management (BPM). RPA started from the buzzwords to best practice where RPA will become an integral part of any organizational business processes. RPA can be established in your organization that includes comprehensive governance, risk and control practices. RPA can efficiently play a vital role in Internal Audit, where RPA can be applied to suitable repetitive tasks which are mundane and manually intensive. RPA can be applied to the below where the impact will be colossal

Data Gathering and cleansing for analytics

The process of collecting data and making it suitable for performing analytics can be done without any manual intervention. This includes,

Pulling the data from various sources used by internal and external auditors
Identifying the duplicates and validates the completeness of fields

Risk Assessment

RPA can be applied to classify the annual risk assessment process. Where Bots are used to collect feedback from participants up-front and assess the risks accordingly.

Population Gathering

Bots can be implemented to gather standard evidence for controls and processes data populations accurately than humans. RPA can be applied to analyze thousands of statement documents for large populations that requires heavy resources to process.

Automation of controls

Bots can be implemented to run control testing for control areas that are standardized.

RPA can assist in the following areas

Identifying open items
sending follow-up emails and documenting status
Tracking progress against the annual audit plan
Automating reporting that includes report templates, audit committee decks, etc.

Benefits of RPA in Internal Audit

Greater coverage
Time and cost savings that can be dedicated to more value-added engagements
On-demand visibility into department performance

Auditing an RPA environment is different from traditional audits. Auditors must up-skill themselves to audit such complex environments. The audit approach will move towards testing more preventive controls and will see more of exceptions-based testing rather than transaction-based audits.