REDESIGNING CONTROLS IN A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT

What did your control environment look like 10 days or even 5 days ago? Likely very different than it does today and will be the coming weeks. Companies have had to adapted to a remote strategy thus impacting many of their controls. Manual or automated controls have had to be redesigned to function in this remote environment. The risk that a reduced workforce due to layoffs can have a significant impact on controls.
As your company starts to plan for the 2020 internal controls testing, it may be very different. Ensure that there is time built into the process to:

• Perform walkthroughs over processes focusing on the controls that new and redesigned controls.
• Gain a complete understanding of how a reduction in staff may have impacted controls.
• Determine temporary controls that were in place during this challenging time and which altered controls may be permanent
• Increased communication and coordination with the external auditor over the changes to the control environment.

If you are ready to start your internal controls redesign process, UHY's resources are here to help. Feel free to contact us at: riskadvisoryservices@uhy-us.com.