Challenge

Stacy, Director of Internal Audit (IA) Professional Practice Group, is responsible for 22 global resources delivering 46 IA, 104 SOX, and 18 Compliance projects to support the Annual Audit Plan.

Her challenges are:

  • Figuring out who is available and scheduling each team member across all projects, while communicating frequent changes throughout the year.
  • Keeping track of completion and unplanned delays across project phases to keep the CAE informed and recommend options when priorities change.

Her current tools are spreadsheets, email, and status calls.

Current Approach & Problems

As with prior years, in 2021, Stacy estimated hours of resource availability (including holidays and vacations), hours for each project, start and completion deadlines, and allocated resources to projects.

However, she is concerned about recurring problems in completing projects on schedule and meeting commitments to the Audit Committee and external auditors. Resources are frequently over- or under-loaded, and it is difficult to manually track and communicate frequent schedule changes.

Key Question: Can we meet the commitments we made to the Audit Committee and external auditors?

Audit Prodigy Solution

With implementation of Audit Prodigy, Stacy found that:

  • With real-time resource availability data at her fingertips and team members neither under- nor over-loaded, she can schedule projects with certainty.
  • She has a 24/7 view of the status of each project and can make changes and communicate with the team in just a few clicks.
  • She receives real-time alerts when projects run beyond plan and schedule, and accountability shifts to team members to estimate and flag risks early.
  • She can download her data into a spreadsheet with a single click.

Results

  • Team members value real-time visibility, a single source of truth for project status, and timely communication of changes.
  • Internal Audit gains confidence in meeting stakeholder commitments, with faster flexibility to adapt to changing business realities and a “no surprises” culture taking root.