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Technical

4 Critical Reasons Startups and Smaller Organizations Need Internal Control Logo aicpa

  Chuck Landes |   Free |   AICPA |   15 Nov 2016 |   AICPA Insights

This blog post outlines a few of the many significant benefits of a strong internal control system.

Topics covered:
  • Management accounting: Technical: Risk management & internal control: Internal control, Foundational
  • Financial accounting & reporting: Technical: Internal control, Foundational
  • Assurance: Technical: Audit: Internal control, Foundational

4 Comments/Reflections

Toh Goh

Toh Goh Nov 2023

For me this is one of the fundamentals of running a finance department, be it a small, medium or large size organisation.

Getting things right first time, believing and having trust in the figures /outcome and fraud has the 'tag' of internal control attached to it.

A very good example of internal control to prevent fraud in the era of working from home during the pandemic is receiving a purported email from your superiors to pay someone unfamiliar without an invoice in existence and being signed off and input into the system. At once if the proper internal control is implemented, one can tell that the email is a SPAM and not such payment is required.
Donatus Bosuh

Donatus Bosuh Jun 2022

I find myself in a different generation that requires internal control to keep me surviving. People these days are "smart". Controls are key indicators.

For haulage and other transport businesses you may even need trackers as another eye. It's costly but necessary. 
Rashmi Balakrishnan

Rashmi Balakrishnan May 2019

useful
Charles Neethling

Charles Neethling Jul 2018

  • There are so many apps these days that makes fraudulent transactions (invoices etc.) so easy and simple internal controls can counter these transactions.
  • Segregation of duties (SOD) is very important and in small organizations they don't always have the resources to apply SODs in all their processes but they must identify key processes (e.g. payments) to apply the SOD internal control. Start with selecting the processes that address the 4 reasons listed in this article.