Types of Audit Reports
The report process is comprised of three reports: a draft report, a preliminary report, and a final report.
Draft Audit Report
The draft audit report includes the observations and recommendations discussed during the exit conference, but with additional sections that provide reader context.
The lead auditor drafts the report for review and feedback by the Chief Audit Executive. The draft report is sent to the audit customer for their review and comments as to the accuracy and clarity of the report as well as the reasonableness of the recommendations. The content will be largely unchanged from the exit conference so there should not be any surprises to the audit customer. Ten business days are normally provided for the audit customer to submit their feedback.
The lead auditor will resolve comments that are received and integrate them with the audit report as applicable.
Preliminary Audit Report
The preliminary audit report is essentially the draft audit report after all comments have been resolved. It is issued by the Chief Audit Executive to senior management as a confidential document with a request for a formal response to each recommendation. Depending on the audit, there could be two to five weeks to provide the formal response. The formal response should include a plan of action for each recommendation and expected date of completion for each action plan. Each formal response will be reviewed for acceptance by the Chief Audit Executive.
Final Audit Report
The final report is prepared after the formal response(s) have been accepted. The final report is simply a combination of the preliminary audit report and the formal response(s). It is distributed to the Board of Regents Audit and Finance Committee and discussed at their next regularly scheduled meeting.
Audit recommendations remain open until they are followed up and determined to have actions plans implemented. See Follow-up Auditing for the process used to close out open audit recommendations.