Auditor Job Description

The auditor job description details the role's major responsibilities and the required qualifications and skills. Auditors ensure company financials are correct and compliant with generally accepted accounting principles by examining a company's financial records. The auditor job description must contain relevant skills and experience required for an individual to be successful in such a role.

Recent trends have revealed that many auditors are specializing. Some specialize in assurance services (enhancing the context or quality of the information available to decision-makers) or risk management (estimating the likelihood of errors in financial documents). Some auditors, like those in the healthcare sector, are industry-specific specialists.

The function of auditors can involve work examining books of organizations or examining books for external organizations, in which case they are referred to as internal or external auditors. During the audit process, an auditor helps the organization by offering suggestions for cost-cutting and risk-management strategies.

Overall, a successful auditor ensures that a company's financial records are accurate and in line with the legal and accepted accounting principles. The auditor job description can reflect different duties, depending on the nature of the organization and sector in which it operates.

Auditor job description: Overall Purpose

Provides risk-based internal audits by following annual audit plans ensuring compliance with all legal and operating requirements. Auditors develop audit objectives, plans, and scope by reviewing available information and conducting research. Besides making presentations and reports, auditors will also examine and improve the financial and risk management processes through compliance with requirements and procedures. They help design, implement, and maintain internal audit procedures and risk assessment processes.

Auditor job description: Primary Duties

• Validates the conformance and integrity of customary policies by conducting assessments of processes, information and systems.
• Advises on changes to be made by determining whether and where processes are not functioning properly.
• Minimizes risks that could negatively impact the organization by conducting risk assessments.
• Enhances the procedures for locating and removing waste and fraud by checking for mismanagement of an organization's funds.
• Liaises with Managerial staff by presenting findings and recommendations from audits.
• Monitors the audit process by ensuring compliance with processes, guidelines, and regulations.
• Investigates a company's financial statements by conducting internal audits according to annual audit plans.
• Presents audit findings by conducting face-to-face meetings with organization managers and individual clients.
• Develops and upholds excellent working relations by actively engaging the internal staff.
• Helps organizational growth by recommending strategies to increase revenue, decrease expenditures, and increase profitability.
• Ensures revenues are spent and received in line with rules and laws by maintaining and examining the records of a company.
• Helps organizations run lawfully and responsibly by ensuring compliance with government regulations such as taxes.
• Familiarizes with the organization, its procedures, and any associated regulatory requirements by learning and reading its manuals.
• Informs the manager and lead auditor of the status of the ongoing audits by providing timeous updates and communicating effectively.

Auditor job description: Qualifications Required

• A minimum of a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting, Auditing, Finance, or a related field is required for a wide range of hard and soft skills.
• Relevant Professional Qualification such as ACCA, CIMA, CA, and ICSAZ is preferred but not required for improved skills and abilities within the role.
• Demonstrated knowledge of computer systems such as PASTEL, SAP, and Advanced MS Office is required, as the role uses ICT solutions.

Auditor job description: Experience Required

• Experience with general accounting practices and techniques is important because it provides the foundation for good audit practices.
• Experience working as an auditor demonstrates the ability to carry out the job effectively and oblige with legal requirements.
• Experience developing audit policies and procedures reflects the capability to develop such.
• Experience with advanced Microsoft Office packages is needed to analyze, report, and present audit results.
• Experience working independently with some supervision and completing assignments timely with sufficient attention to detail is needed to ensure accuracy and thorough coverage.
• Experience resolving challenges unveiled by the audit process is needed to perform end-to-end audit processes that proffer recommendations.
• Experience working in a collaborative environment is needed to maximize teamwork and team effort.
• Experience with teleworking is needed for some audit tasks that may require working from the client's office (near or far).
• Experience working with other stakeholders, i.e. employees and management, in collaborating is needed for audit efficiency and effectiveness.  

Auditor job description: KSAOs

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Knowledge

• Knowledge of basic accounting principles is needed to ensure that quality processes are used.
• Knowledge of various accounting information systems i.e. PASTEL, and SAP is essential to interpret data inputs.
• Knowledge of legal regulations and laws that guide the audit process is needed to minimize legal liability.

Skills

• Communication and presentation skills are needed to present audit reports and insights to various stakeholders.
• Attention to detail skills are needed in auditing to ensure thorough data analysis
• Multitasking skills are needed to enable concurrent progression on multiple tasks.

Abilities

• The ability to operate independently with minimum supervision, finish tasks on schedule, and pay close enough attention to detail is needed to guarantee the correctness and thoroughness of the audit process.
• The ability to interact with people at all organizational levels and with all team members is needed to ensure enough buy-in and collaboration.
• The ability to do tasks on time and in the necessary quantity and quality is needed to comply with audit timelines.
• The ability to acquire, retain, and apply specialized job knowledge and technical requirements is needed to ensure efficiency at work.
• Ability to find quick solutions to issues by conducting studies and employing logic.
• The ability to explain complicated information clearly and concisely to a financial and non-financial audience is needed to give full insights to the audience.

Other Characteristics

• Auditors must be able to put in several hours of overtime. This is so because auditors handle large volumes of work quickly.  

Conclusion

The main responsibilities of this function are to ensure a company's books are correct and comply with the law by inspecting the organization's financial accounts and records. Auditors minimize risks that could negatively impact the organization by conducting risk assessments.



Brandon Murambinda is an Organisational Design and Development Consultant at Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, a management and human resources consulting firm. Email:brandon@ipcconsultants.com or visit our websites https://www.thehumancapitalhub.com/ and www.ipcconsultants.com