How do I become an Internal Auditor?

Dennis Harris said: I am recently licensed as a Certified Internal Auditor. I doubt classes would help much unless they were specific ones. Database Management and CAAT Software like IDEA are particularly important, so getting comfortable with Microsoft Access or SQL would be quite prudent and smart. You can get demo versions of IDEA, but you have to have a pretty good orientation to Auditing in order to learn it, since the only training for it is done by Audimation Services and it is not cheap, by any stretch of the imagination.

Thank you for the response... if I may ask.. (not to get too personal) how much can one earn in that position.. Meaning does the compensation outweigh the cost of getting the certification?... Thanks

Comp for IA I dont actually know yet, but I can tell you this: Just getting out of school for Accounting, I got a job as an External Auditor for a regional CPA firm and made 35k a year salary. The CIA license is 160.00 a section (times 4 sections comes up to 640.00 total not including the Review kit) for non-members which is an incredibly good deal, especially considering the thousands of dollars to take/study/pass the Certified Public Accountant exam!

Hi Alec

Dennis has given you good answers. You should read (from the handbook) more about the requirements for the CIA.

www.theiia.org/certification/certified-internal-auditor/

Alec in Miami, Florida said: I would like to become an internal auditor. I am in financial services at the moment but a completly unrelated field. I would like to know if I take classes AND then the CIA exam would I be a viable candidate for a job?

If I'm remembering correctly, you have to have experience in internal auditing in order to receive the CIA certification. You will more than likely need an accounting background.

Re: experience in Internal Auditing to become certified

(Technically) you dont have to have this: It is either 24 months of Internal Audit/closely related field... or you can Substitute 12 months of this for either:
1) One year of professional experience in
Accounting, Law or Finance or..
2) A Masters Degree

See page 20 of the IIA's 09/28/2009 Candidate Handbook. This was derived word for word from its contents. You will need to have your professional experience forms filled out and submitted to determine if they qualify for these Exceptions. Mine was fairly fast, so they do tend to review/reply very efficiently when it comes to documentation and CIA licensing questions!

Dennis Harris said: Re: experience in Internal Auditing to become certified

(Technically) you dont have to have this: It is either 24 months of Internal Audit/closely related field... or you can Substitute 12 months of this for either:
1) One year of professional experience in
Accounting, Law or Finance or..
2) A Masters Degree

See page 20 of the IIA's 09/28/2009 Candidate Handbook. This was derived word for word from its contents. You will need to have your professional experience forms filled out and submitted to determine if they qualify for these Exceptions. Mine was fairly fast, so they do tend to review/reply very efficiently when it comes to documentation and CIA licensing questions!

Okay but that still leaves 12 months of internal/external audit experience. They won't just give you the license without some kind of audit experience. That's what I was talking about.

Correct. This was my problem as well, being as I could never get a job with a public CPA firm for a long time! It is kind of a Catch 22 type deal. The license wants a few years IA experience, but when you get to studying for the license you find out that the Internal Auditing promotes, suggests and expects a lot of diverse fields in the Internal Auditing dept, mostly from outside Accounting. In fact, they even have something in the Hiring aspect stating "An accounting background is not a requisite for hiring an Internal Auditor, as well as an IA dept with only Accounting Backgrounds is extremely limited in expertise and knowledgebase."

I recently received a promotion at my place of employment. I work for a financial institution, who is currently helping me through college. I worked in customer service for about 3 1/2 years before I applied for an Assistant Internal Auditor position. I think a part of the reason why I received the job was not only my work ethic but also because I currently am pursuing a degree in accounting. I am so lucky to be surrounded by CPAs and I know this job will open up many doors.

What I am saying is, you have to start somewhere. Put yourself out there and get people to know you. It is harder to shine when you work in the back where no one can see you.

Alec in Miami, Florida said: I would like to become an internal auditor . I am in financial services at the moment but a completly unrelated field. I would like to know if I take classes AND then the CIA exam would I be a viable candidate for a job?

==>>>

Still studying then eventually passing the CIA help to some extent. Employers see that you're serious about the internal auditing profession.

HELP!! I am currently in school now and wanting to finish my degree with Bachelors in Accounting to be an auditor. I have been doing some research on it and I don't really get anything set in stone any place I have been online trying to find information about it. Some places say they make $70k a year, others say they make $30-40k a year. That's QUITE a difference!! Are they speaking of two different types of auditors or what? Can anyone give me some information on this and what kind of audit I need to go into to make $70k a year. Also, if you have any experience, can you tell me what your daily work-life is like? Some places I am seeing that you travel a lot. I will not be doing any traveling. I know someone who is an auditor and she doesn't travel. (I don't know her well enough to be asking her all these questions or I would.) Is this job stressful? Do you have to deal with a great amount of people on a daily basis? What are some good attributes to have going into this field? I have an introverted personality type and I have seen that this job is good for introverted people--perfect actually, and then on other sites from other people I am seeing that being "personable" is one of the top 3 traits that you should have. Seriously, no matter where I go to research this, I cannot get a straight answer..nothing even close. It's like every person is saying something completely different and opposite than the last person's blog/article I read. Any help would be very much appreciated and anything else you would like to throw in would be benefitial as well. Also, how is the job market looking out there for this career REALISTICALLY?? They can say there's a 22% job growth but that is actually based on if there was a good economy, and is not realistic (BLS.gov and other statistics). And I have found many careers to be listed this way.

Thanks!!!

It really depends more on your local area than the respective "type" of audit work you do. IN a small town, a cpa firm will pay an auditor 11-13 dollars an hour (have seen that lots), in a big city a starting out staff acc/auditor will get roughly 30-40 and the big 4 pay probably 40-50 depending on how much travel you deal with. Senior auditors typically make about 10k more a year. Managers about another 10k, but I have seen firms pay senior managers make 45-50k a year bec/not as many jobs in the area so they had to settle for lower amounts like that.

Private industry (ie.. internal audit) will almost always pay more and much better benefits than public but its also a lot harder to get corp jobs like that, since its an employers market and they love to play lots of psycho BS games with candidates all day long.

Being introverted is not going to help you be an auditor, as you spend most of your time at client locales talking with staff/seniors/mgrs/execs and talking with them all about business matters outside of work too. But most client staff are intimidated and scared of auditors, so its a lot easier to work with them. First two or three years you do easy account worksheets... Cash (ie basically get client documentation and prepare a huge bank rec that ties out).. Fixed Assets... Accounts Payable,... you know the easier accounts that beginners can wrangle around and get solid strong answers to. As opposed to getting stuck preparing a worksheet on Intangibles or evaluating if ADA is deemed reasonable or not. Starting the 2nd year and onward, you start getting into more of the higher level professional judgements about the audit, risk levels, learning how to prepare a statistical sample for a population, etc. Its pretty fun.

The travel requirement really depends on size of firm, attest engagements the firm has and how many staff/seniors/etc get assigned to each engagement. The attest clients and requirements vary a lot from firm to firm.

Okay thanks. You helped a lot. Is it possible that I make $70k starting out and don't have to travel?

And by 40-50, do you mean a year or an hour?

And what's the job market like for this? After school I'm not going to be looking for work for like a year or two am I?

Is it possible that I'm stuck with a job making only $40k a year? I live in Houston, by the way, if that helps.

Thanks!!!!!

I think your setting your expectations way too high, which is a common problem with green folks. Big 4 only start their people out at 45 or so... your not going to get anywhere near 70,000 a year for a good five to ten years. A senior (5 to 7 years) could get 60 in a govt or high-end corporate job. Govt may pay 70 or 80, probably where the highest paying audit jobs are, like anything else.

When I say a typical firm in a big city pays 30-40 for a regular staff auditor, it is 30,000 to 40,000 per year, usually it will be salary for 2080 hours and overtime is expected and not considered in the wages paid. It is the nature of the business. Bigger firms usually have bookkeepers and regular staff on audits doing basic worksheets for 20 years or something, you can tell them from regular professionals by the fact they don't know any audit terminology or do anything other than the worksheet, we call them the "bodies"... since that is all they do... take up a seat at the conference room table on the engagement. Plus you have to continually deal with them not knowing what the difference between vouching and tracing is and why each is important and clean up all their mistakes since they don't know anything about audit.

Goodness. That's weird. Bls.gov (a "trusted" site with career information) says that they make $30/hr and $62k/year. That's why I was trying to get actual sources so I would know. Well thanks for the help!! I think I'll still pursue this career. My credit is not great though. Is that going to have an impact on getting a job in this field?