With our expert seminars
for successful auditing

The Distinct Advantage

Give your audit organization the distinct advantage that all successful organizations have. Make your people the best so they can help make your organziation the best. Give them the skills they need for succeeding in your organization, and watch them make your organization successful in return. With these added skills, your people will know how to achieve goals and meet requirements that you could only dream about before.

Don't be among those short-sighted managers who overlook or ignore the hidden costs of untrained people. Although these costs cannot be line-itemed, they definitely show up on the bottom line. Businesses and government agencies with poorly trained people suffer from low productivity, poor quality, work not done properly, work not done on time, wrong work done at all, and on and on. Customers are dissatisfied, managers are frustrated, and workers are fed up. As a result, profits are low, budgets are exceeded, and losses mount.

Invest in training for your people, and reap the rewards in high productivity, good quality, satisfied customers, good bottom lines, and more.

Introduction to Auditing

Give your new auditors the introduction they need to the auditing process from conception to final report. See snippets of every auditing step – planning, researching, analyzing, communicating, reporting, controlling and more. Three days, 24 hours.

Making and Using Audit Planning Tools

Make audit tools for planning and controlling audits, from audit proposals to audit plans to internal reports. Developing an audit idea and presenting it persuasively to management, auditees, and/or third parties. Writing workable audit objectives. Estimating the needed investment of time, personnel, materiel, logistics and other resources. Launching an audit's initial field work from the audit idea. Writing a go/no-go progress report from the initial field work. Writing an audit plan based on the unique audit circumstances and the results of the initial field work. Using finding outlines and report checklists to ensure quality. A two-day, 16-hour course for every auditor, team leader and audit manager.

Audit Management

Manage the conduct of your audits so you product a quality report on time with the available resources. Conceptualizing, planning, organizing, staffing, controlling and communicating. Leading the team and working as a team. Combine the skills of project management, time management, research, analysis and report writing to produce a coherent and effective audit report efficiently. A two-day, 16-hour course for every auditor and manager.

Reviewing Audit Reports

The reviewer's function is too crucial to successful audit reporting to be ignored. This course explains the reviewer's purposes, roles and techniques and shows quality features to look for, positive ways to recommend improvements and effective ways to communicate their review results to writers. A two-day, 16-hour course for every team leader, audit manager, technical editor and anyone else who reviews anybody's draft audit reports. A two-day, 16-hour course for every person who reviews reports written by others.

Time Management for Auditors

With so much to do and so many people waiting for the results, time must be managed as efficiently and effectively as possible. Learn how to plan the work, work the plan, schedule tasks and events, juggle duties and much more. A one-day, eight-hour course for every auditor, team leader and audit manager.

Interviewing Skills for Auditors

Plan and conduct audit interviews of managers, employees and other people for top results. Determine why an interview is an appropriate evidence-gathering method for the circumstances. Determine the information needed from the interview. Identify the people who can provide that information. Develop a questionnaire for the interview. Schedule the interview. Make the interviewee feel comfortable and cooperative. Ask "on the fly" and followup questions. Get information from unwilling interviewees. Follow up on the interview. And more. A two-day, 16-hour course with exercises and role playing.

Evaluating and Recommending Internal Controls

Learn the fundamentals of internal controls and the various types and their purposes so you can evaluate them successfully and recommend meaningful improvements. Distinguish the numerous types of internal controls and their purposes. Link the type of control with the needed results. Determine whether the needed controls are in place. Observe controls to determine whether they are working as needed. Recommend implementation and/or improvement of internal controls. Avoid common pitfalls of internal-control evaluations. A two-day, 16-hour course with realistic analytical exercises.

Analyzing Audit Evidence

Learn to analyze data into indisputably logical conclusions. Convince auditees and third parties that your findings are correct, and persuade cognizant officials to implement your recommendations. Apply logical syllogisms, conditional arguments, statistics and other age-old logical methods to evaluating evidence. Avoid common logical flaws. A two-day, 16-hour course with hands-on analytical exercises.

Developing Persuasive Findings

Develop findings that can convince skeptical readers and persuade reluctant managers to act positively. Learn the numerous types of findings and their elements, as well as how they relate to and differ from one another. Apply criteria, condition, cause, effect and recommendation. Learn the difference between compliance findings and other performance findings and apply the appropriate analyses to the situations. A two-day, 16-hour course using actual findings for exercises.

Writing Dependable Working Papers

Clearly and accurately written audit working papers can make auditing and reporting more successful with less effort and hassle, with daily writing practice being a crucial fringe benefit. Organize the working papers in concert with the finding. Write coherently so other auditors can quickly understand the audit from the working papers and so the working papers can be easily compiled into a first-draft report. A two-day, 16-hour course with real working-paper exercises.

By the way, writing working papers and gathering evidence are two distinct skills. If your working-paper training isn't producing the results you want, maybe your auditors are confused because their working-paper training focused on evidence gathering instead of evidence storing.

Writing Successful Audit Reports

Learn how to plan, organize and write audit reports that bring positive results. Organize audit reports to address the needs of various readers. Learn where to place various types of reportable information. Meet fundamental requirements of audit reporting. Lay out findings so readers can follow them easily. Lay out explanations so readers can understand them quickly. Use visual aids to guide readers through the report and grasp significant and complicated concepts. A two-day, 16-hour course with hands-on writing exercises.

Presentation Skills for Auditors

Present findings and other information personally to internal and external managers as well as to other interested parties. Organize audit information so audiences can follow along. Prepare visual aids to help audiences grasp important information. Make audiences feel comfortable and interested. Present the information. Answer questions. A two-day, 16-hour course with role playing.

Honing Your Writing Skills

A refresher writing course for seasoned auditors. Everyone gets rusty and forgets useful and needed writing skills over time. This course focuses revisits proven techniques and sharpened writing skills from the point of view of seasoned auditors who have plenty of writing training and experience but need a considerate refresher. Not for novices. A two-day, 16-hour course with hands-on writing exercises.

Advanced Writing for Auditors

This course explores writing areas that are not covered in typical writing programs for auditors. Course covers how to write audit objectives, audit recommendations, definitions and responses to management replies, as well as how to use examples most effectively. Definitely not for novices. A two-day, 16-hour course with hands-on writing exercises.

If you think leading an audit team comes naturally, think again. Leadership comes naturally to only a special few people. The rest of us have to learn how to do it. A good way to make a failed leader is to throw someone into the position and expect a miracle.

Teamwork for Auditors

This course shows auditors how to work together on teams and how to manage teams for success. For best results, two approaches are used:

Team Leaders

Team leaders are shown team work from the "coach" point of view. Recognizing the team's mission or laying out the mission, as appropriate for the circumstances. Recognizing the various types of teams and choosing the best type for the mission. Establishing smaller goals to achieve the objectives. Spreading the workload among the team members. Establishing and maintaining schedules. Gathering the team. Showing members the importance of the team and their contribution to it. Helping team members meet their objectives. Facilitating decisions. Helping members solve team problems. A two-day, 16-hour course with hands-on exercises and roll-playing.

Team Members

Team members are shown team work from the "player" point of view. Understanding the roles of teams and their members. Recognizing the team's mission. Understanding one's individual roles and goals and how they fit into the team's mission. Taking charge of those roles and goals. Following through on assignments and requests. Respecting the roles, goals, needs and differences among the team members. Working cooperatively with the leader and members. A two-day, 16-hour course with hands-on exercises and role playing.

Audit Leadership

Leading auditors in today's high-tech world requires new leadership skills and methods. This course prepares new and existing managers for this crucial task. It entails the team-leadership skills described above, plus supervision and legal requirements such as preventing workplace violence and various types of harassment and meeting the needs of disabled workers. A two-day, 16-hour program for present or future managers, only.

Any of these ready-to-go seminars can be customized for your organization, or entirely new seminars can be made. We'll listen to your needs and reflect them in your seminars for a nominal development fee.

For Every Organization and Auditor Seeking Success

Our seminars are ideal for all auditors in any audit organization:

Organized and Presented for Your Success

Every seminar is organized and presented with your success for its objective.

The result is success for your people, your organization and ultimately you. These benefits are exactly what you need, aren't they?

Build Your Organization With Our Expert Seminars

These fine auditing seminars are presented in-house for clients who engage us to build the skills of their auditors. We bring the programs to you, or we customize programs for you, or we develop new programs for your unique needs.

Successfully Training Auditors for Years

We are experts in our fields and in training professionals in work places. In business endeavors since the late 1960s, we are trained and experienced in managing, auditing, leading and training, and we have more than 30 years of successful business experience and nearly 20 years of successful training experience. Our clients include government agencies, large corporations and small businesses. For expert training, engage TopSkills — your business success experts!

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Bring Our Seminars to Your Auditors

You're wise to learn more about our successful-auditing seminars.

Our auditing seminars vary in duration and attendance, and travel expenses apply, so we must have a little information from you before we can answer this question. We'll respond as quickly as we can.

All these seminars are for organizations seeking to train their staffs. We do not provide open-registration seminars. For individual auditor training, get our auditing self-training books.

Bill Stack, President, TopSkills

These seminars are what you need for a successful auditing team. Your people will definitely benefit from these success skills. As a result, your entire organization will be successful, and so will you.

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"You identified issues that other consultants missed."
— Miles Shaffer, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

"You helped us solve our problems quickly and realistically."
— Earl Sharp, Lexington, Kentucky, USA

"The staff really appreciated your insight and encouragement."
— Amy Madigan, San Francisco, California