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How to Write Audit Findings: The 5 Cs Explained

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An audit is only as useful as the findings it produces. You can test every control, sample every ledger and document every walkthrough, but if the finding that lands on the Chief Executive’s or Audit Committee’s desk is vague, defensive or impossible to act on, the work has largely been wasted. Weak findings get disputed, ignored or “noted”, and the same issue reappears in next year’s report.

This guide sets out a practical, step-by-step approach to writing audit findings using the five attributes many audit teams call the “5 Cs”: criteria, condition, cause, effect and recommendation (the fifth “C” is sometimes called “corrective action”). It works for internal auditors, external auditors raising management letter points, and risk and compliance officers reporting control gaps

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IIA Global Internal Audit Standards 2024: What Changed

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In January 2024 the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) released the Global Internal Audit Standards, replacing the 2017 International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing. The new Standards became effective on 9 January 2025, so every internal audit function claiming conformance, from a ministry audit unit in Harare to a bank’s group internal audit in Johannesburg, should by now be working to them.

Many teams updated their charter and moved on, but the 2024 Standards change how internal audit is governed, planned, measured and quality-assured. Here is what changed, the gaps we see most often, and a checklist to use with your team.

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Benford’s Law for Fraud Detection: Excel Guide for Auditors

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Most auditors expect the leading digits in a ledger to be spread evenly: about as many amounts starting with 9 as with 1. In real financial data that is not what happens. Far more amounts start with 1 than with 9, and the pattern is predictable enough to test. That pattern is called Benford’s Law, and it is one of the quickest ways to find out where to look in a large set of payments, expense claims or journal entries.

This guide covers what Benford’s Law is, what it can and cannot tell you, and how to run a first-digit test in Excel on your own data today.

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Risk-Based Audit Planning: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Every audit team has limited time and people. Risk-based audit planning is how you decide where that effort goes. Instead of testing everything a little, you test the areas most likely to go wrong, and the areas where a failure would hurt most, in real depth. Done well, it produces fewer wasted hours, sharper findings and reports that management and boards actually read.

This guide walks through risk-based audit planning step by step. It works for internal audit engagements at banks, parastatals and NGOs, and for the planning phase of an external audit.

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IFRS 16 Lease Register

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With one lease, IFRS 16 is a calculation. With twenty, it is a data problem. The arithmetic does not get harder, but every year-end you need the same answers for every lease: what is the liability, how much is current, what was the depreciation and interest, and what payments fall due in which years. The tool that makes this manageable is a lease register.

This guide covers what an IFRS 16 lease register should contain, how to make sure it is complete, and a worked example that takes a three-lease register to the year-end figures and disclosures. A free Excel register is linked at the en

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IFRS 16 Incremental Borrowing Rate

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Ask any auditor which IFRS 16 input they challenge most and the answer is almost always the same: the discount rate. The lease payments come from a contract. The lease term comes from a documented judgement about options. But the discount rate, for most companies, is an estimate built from scratch, and it moves the lease liability on every lease you have.

This guide explains what the incremental borrowing rate (IBR) is, why most lessees have to use it, and a practical build-up method you can apply and defend. It ends with a sensitivity table showing how much a two-point change in the rate moves the balance sheet.

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How to Calculate a Lease Liability Under IFRS 16

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IFRS 16 Leases moved almost every lease onto the balance sheet. For a lessee that means one number drives everything else: the lease liability. Get it right and the right-of-use asset, the interest charge, the depreciation and the disclosure note all follow. Get it wrong and every figure built on it is wrong too.

This guide shows exactly how to calculate a lease liability under IFRS 16, step by step, using a worked example you can check in Excel. It then builds the right-of-use asset, the full amortisation schedule, the journal entries and the current/non-current split, and shows how the answer changes when payments are made in advance or increase each year.

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