What is the difference between Internal and External (IT) audit?
Cynical answer: “Externals have leather seats in their cars” … in fact the main distinction is the degree of independence from the organization being audited. External Auditors are always employed by a separate organization and are normally contracted by the organization to perform audits as part of the process of preparing formal company accounts, or for accredited certification purposes. In practice, External Auditors are mostly employed for a few months a year to examine and provide a formal opinion on the veracity of the organization’s financial accounts. Their formal opinion is normally presented in a highly-stylised form in the organization’s annual report to shareholders. IT auditors working for an External Audit company engaged on financial audit work are primarily concerned with integrity of the client’s core financial data and accounting systems (general ledger etc.) and other important systems involved in generating and processing financial records (e.g. sales order proces
