An audit is one of the essential business processes, and every organization must conduct these processes. These audits may either be internal or external, depending upon the type of audit you want to conduct. The most common objectives of audits are to identify the accuracy and fairness of financial records and statements.

Most businesses and companies, to achieve fair financial records and financial statements seek expert guidance and help. These experts, with the help of their expertise, enable businesses to keep a check on their accounts and business processes. Have been said all the above points, there still exist some difficulties in proceeding with these audit processes. These difficulties may arise because of internal elements or because of external elements. It is imperative to identify and mend these problematic areas to keep a record of accurate financial records for businesses.

Keep reading this article to get familiar with the most common and effective audit barriers that affect audit procedures.

Top 7 Audit Barriers that Restrict the Audit Process and Procedures

Any business or organization conducting audit processes gets affected by internal or external factors. It is crucial to control and overcome these barriers because conducting audit processes with the existence of these barriers will affect the audit results and reports.

Following are some of the barriers and hurdles that every business or auditor faces during audit procedures.

1. Lack of expertise and experience

Lack of expertise and knowledge in audit processes are the biggest barriers. The audits you hire for your company or business must be experts in their field and know well where to start and what processes and steps to follow. Having an inexpert auditor will lead to many poor organizational decisions. That is why many businesses support their future financial and organizational decisions by hiring the top audit firms in Dubai to conduct audit processes and accurate audit reports. These accurate reports will lead to better organizational decisions leading to organizational growth.

2. Lack of available resources and evidence

The right and relevant resources and evidence are crucial for audit procedures. Based on these available resources and evidence, auditors become able to make financial and audit reports. Without the availability of previous financial records, auditors are unable to conduct audit processes. That is why organizations must keep their previous financial records for a certain period, most probably for seven years.

3. External factors

External factors are great influential elements for the progress of audit processes for any organization. These external factors include the change in governmental laws and regulations; another external factor includes the change in the market value of currencies etc. Sometimes, the organization’s culture and rules also impact the audit processes and its proceedings.

4. Not knowing where to start from

One of the audit barriers that arise due to the auditor himself is the lack of knowledge. There are certain pain points and starting points with which the auditors have to begin the audit processes. When the auditors are unaware of where to start the audit process, they become unable to complete the audit process successfully. Even if they complete the process, the results they will provide to businesses will not be satisfactory.

5. Ignoring fraudulent activities

This type of barrier usually arises in the internal audit processes. The internal auditor tries to hide the fraudulent activities within the organization to support their colleagues. These fraudulent activities mostly happen with inventory and finances. When these auditors ignore these fraudulent activities within the organization, the financial statements are more likely to face imbalances. The financial reports auditors generate will not be authentic and will not have balance amounts in them.

6. Untrained audit teams

Again lack of expertise and skills to conduct audit procedures are one of the biggest audit barriers. Most organizations and businesses neglect the importance of training their auditors so that they can learn new methods of conducting audit processes. They must conduct training programs and sessions to train their audit teams and let them learn how to use the latest technical equipment for these processes.

7. Communication barriers

For conducting audit processes successfully, communication is key and is very important. Auditors have to conduct many inquiry sessions with the workers and authorities of the organization while they conduct audit processes. Communication barriers usually occur due to an organization’s culture and sometimes because of the inexpertise of the auditors. So, hire the experts of top audit firms in Dubai that have expertise in communication and possess the ability to develop accurate audit reports and financial statements.

Overcome audit barriers to have fairer and more accurate audit reports!

Before conducting audit processes, you need to overcome and remove audit barriers that exist internally or externally. Having skillful and expert auditors will help you deal with these barriers and develop and maintain accurate financial records. So, keep the above barriers in mind while you conduct the audit processes and ask for expert help to successfully complete the audit.

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