The objectives of a management audit of a project are the analysis of the management competence of the project as well as to agree on measures for the further development of this management competence. Project audits are often assigned by project managers and serve the purpose of supporting the project in the course of implementation.

Objects of consideration of an audit are the project management process, the applied methods, the design of the project organization etc.

 

The benefits of a management audit of a project are:

For the project:

• Recognition of strengths and weaknesses as well as optimization potentials regarding the applied project management;

• Contribution to the assurance of a high project management quality in the project;

• Contribution to the realization of the project objectives… or member of the project organization:

• Transparency regarding the strengths and weaknesses as well as regarding optimization potentials of project management;

• Clarification of tasks, which have to be fulfilled by the individual members of the project organization in the project;

For the project-oriented company:

• Contribution to the optimization of the company’s success;

• Development of long-term project management competences

For customers (external projects) respectively users of the project results (internal projects):

• Clarification of the tasks, to be fulfilled in the project;

• Contribution to the optimal realization of the project objectives 

For cooperation partners and suppliers:

• Contribution to the optimization of the cooperation in the project

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A management audit of a project includes the following services:

• Project analysis by a documentation analysis, interviews, observations of meetings, etc.

• Benchmark of the management competence with other projects and with “best practices” according to RGC PROJECT

• Recommendation of  measures for the further development of the management competence

• Development of an audit report

• Performance of an audit workshop

A management audit of a project is performed by an auditing team in cooperation with representatives of the project organization.

The project audit is performed on the basis of the management approach RGC PROJECT.

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Financial audits dig deep into a company's financial situation, probing accounting records, internal controls policies, cash holdings and other sensitive financial areas. Publicly-traded corporations are subject to external financial audits on a regular basis, and even privately owned small businesses can be subjected to an external financial audit by the IRS or other government authority. Knowing how to perform a financial audit on your own books can help you to prepare for a possible external audit, keep your accounting system in order and discourage internal fraud and theft.

• Review the systems put in place to transmit financial information to the accounting department. The first step in the accounting cycle is to gather financial documentation, such as sales receipts, invoices and bank statements, and forward it to the accounting department for processing. Without timely and reliable information, accounting records can become unreliable themselves, creating discrepancies in a company's financial records.

• Look into the company's record-keeping policies and check to ensure records are being stored properly. Small businesses should keep at least an electronic photocopy of cash register tapes, cancelled checks, invoices and other financial documentation until the end of the current accounting period. Make sure that archived records can be accessed quickly to shed light on any potential issues that arise.

• Identify and review each element of the company's accounting system, including individual T-accounts (debits and credits), journal entries, the general ledger and current financial statements. Systematically work through the accounting system to ensure that all necessary accounts are present, that T-accounts are posted to the general ledger in a timely manner and that the system has the ability to correct human errors, such as arithmetic mistakes.

• Check into the company's internal controls policies to gauge the level of protection they provide from theft and fraud. Internal control policies include things like separation of accounting duties between different employees, locked safes for holding pending bank deposits and password-protected accounting software that tracks exactly who does what and when.

• Compare internal records of cash holdings, income and expenses against external records. Check the company's stored external records and compare selected transactions against internal records. Compare purchase receipts sent from suppliers for a certain month against internal purchase records, for example, or compare cash register tapes against revenue recorded on the books.

• Analyze the company's internal tax records and official tax returns. Tax records should be kept for seven years to be on the safe side. Browse through the company's tax receipts from the IRS and compare it against records of tax liabilities and taxes paid in the company's accounting records. Take a little extra time to review the range of credits and deductions claimed on the most recent tax return, looking for areas of dubious reporting, such as inflated expense numbers.