© Matti Mattila, CPFA, CISA, CIA

Questionaire #2: Financial Reporting and Determination of Risks

Previous item Previous menu

What information we want?

First, we want information about whether those in charge of financial reporting process are aware of problems in the working climate, controls and accounting systems. More concretely, to what degree the financial management is aware thereof to what degree the follow circumstances prevail.
D01) Financial reporting employees behave themselves in accordance with organization's rules, policies and objectives, and their superiors know how they have succeeded in their work.
D02) Financial reporting employees understand importance and ratio of each finacial reporting key control and their superiors know how well they perform controls.
D03) Controls in the financial reporting process address identified significant risks.
D04) The information financial reporting management gets is appropriate for finding out control problems, reasons for anomalies [1], and neglects by accountable [2].
D05) Controls of the accounting systems have been examined by competents auditors.
Secondly, we want information of those people's ability to act appropritely when they are faced with problems or information about them. To what degree the following is true.
D06) Those in charge of financial management know their internal control responsibilities, realize limitations of internal control system, own thinking and own observations, and they are not afraid to ask if they do not understand something.
D07) Those in charge of financial management make correct risk analyses when risks in the financial reporting process are identified.
D08) Those in charge of financial management pay attention to anomalies in the financial reporting and make checks on their own initiative when problems in financial reporting emerge.
Finally, we pose an open question.
D09) What is the biggest problem in determination of risks within the financial reporting process.

[1] Organizations collect and archieve this kind of data for control purposes, e.g. with the help of log systems, control cameras and other such automated recording systems.
[2] [wikipedia 9.11.2008:] In leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences.