Internal Financial Control

Furthermore, under Sec 143 of the Companies Act, external auditors are required to separately issue opinion on the adequacy of IFC and the operating effectiveness of such controls. Considering this, all unlisted companies (public and private) have to gear up to meet the requirements of IFC. The only relief provided by the ICAI guidance note is that the scope of external audit will be restricted to financial reporting controls only.

The revised guidance note issued by the ICAI recently has also extended the requirement of opinion from external auditors to consolidated financial statements, thereby emphasizing the focus required on completing the management design and testing across all companies within a group.

Considering the limited timeframe available to ensure adherence to the requirements and also meet conditions of external auditors, companies need to immediately embark on this initiative.

Course Content:

Introduction to IFC and its components

Requirement of IFC under Companies Act, 2013

IFC Project Scope

Overall approach

Understanding documentation with live examples and hands on experience

SOX/IFC Global Scenario

Regulatory requirements with perspective of similar global requirements

Key Difference between IFC & Enterprise Risk Management

Specific approach for

financial reporting controls (benchmarked to ICAI guidance note)

operational controls (with reference to globally recognized control frameworks)

resilience controls (with reference to globally recognized control frameworks)

Integrated reporting to:

Senior management

Audit committee

Board

Assessment of Entity Level Controls

Applicability

Integration with internal audit

Implementation timelines

Materiality and scoping

Meeting stakeholders requirements

Overview of ICAI guidelines

Assessing the design of controls with practical examples and hands on practice sessions

Value addition approach

Key Process and Controls Assessment

IFC framework

Assessing operating effectiveness along with practice sessions

Focus from second year onward

Timings: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm , Registration begins at 9:00 am