Audit Committee tasks and outcomes

Audit Committee Charter Matrix PURPOSE OF THIS TOOL: Preparing an audit committee charter is often referred to as a best practice and is required for many public companies. It is encouraged for most organizations and required by some states for not-for-profit organizations. However, the charter is often prepared and forgotten except for its annual review. This tool is designed to help audit committees make the charter a living document and use it to manage the agenda. This tool is meant as a sample of what might be considered to be a best practice. Users of the tool should put their own charter in the first column and use this example as a guide for defining the steps to accomplish each objective, the associated performance measure, and the scheduling. This tool is intended to serve not-for-profit organizations of all sizes and organizational structures. For instance, some small not-for-profit organizations cannot justify the expense of an internal auditor, while others have very large internal audit departments headed by a senior executive. It is becoming more common in larger organizations to refer to the person heading the internal audit function as the chief audit executive (CAE). As used in this tool, the terms chief audit executive and CAE refer to the person responsible for the internal audit function, irrespective of their title or organizational role. Similarly, relatively few not-for-profit organizations employ in-house legal counsel. ...