Internal Audit
As internal auditors, we identify operational improvement opportunities and increase the effectiveness of operations by ensuring that the right internal controls and processes are in place.
In addition, internal audit provides an objective evaluation of the system of internal control established by the management, to safeguard shareholders’ investments and the organisation’s assets.
We focus on addressing risks that may affect the organisation’s objectives and strategies.
Our services are designed specifically to assist the Audit Committee of SGX-ST and Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (“HKEX”)-listed companies in carrying out their functions as prescribed in the respective Codes of Corporate Governance.
Our detailed step-by-step approach is as follows:
Internal Control Review for IPO
To prepare for the IPO exercise on the Catalist Board of SGX-ST, we provide services to assess current structures and establish internal control frameworks, addressing financial, operational and compliance risks. For example, we:
- Identify and analyse control deficiencies
- Propose recommendations to mitigate control gaps
- Assist in the implementation of recommendations
- Assist in establishing standard operating procedures (“SOPs”) and procedures for critical business processes (if required)
Internal Control Policy and Procedure Development
With our competency and accumulated knowledge in internal controls, we can help you set up formalised policies and procedures to strengthen your internal control systems, for purposes such as an IPO application.
We adopt a systematic approach to the development of policies and procedures as follows:
- Conduct thorough interviews with process owners and document our understanding of workflows
- Identify internal control weaknesses
- Recommend control enhancements
- Discuss the practicality of our recommended enhancements with management
- Draft and finalise a practical and effective set of policies and procedures
A comprehensive set of policies and procedures will help streamline your business, provide clarity and guidance to business decisions, enable smooth transitions during staff handover, and facilitate business expansion and integration.
Enterprise risk management (“ERM”)
We will advise and assist you in setting up an effective and market-aligned risk management framework with the following processes:
Administration of Whistleblowing Programme
An effective whistleblowing policy serves to raise concerns about possible wrongdoing or improprieties in financial and other matters involving staff and Board members.
As the administrator for your whistleblowing programme, we can provide you with independent and secure channels for your staff to file these complaints.
The services that we provide include:
- Assistance in setting up a whistleblowing policy
- Setting up whistleblowing channels
- Receiving and filtering complaints
- Responding to the whistle-blower
- Reporting status of complaints received to the Audit Committee on a regular basis
- Providing prompt reporting on valid complaints to the Audit Committee, while ensuring the anonymity of the whistle-blower
- Performing investigation work to establish the validity of the complaint and advise the Audit Committee
Quality assurance for internal audit
We are qualified to conduct quality assessments of internal audit departments.
The Institute of Internal Auditors (“IIA”) has specified that for organisations to be compliant with the standards prescribed by the IIA, an external assessment of their Internal Audit function has to be carried out.