Internal Financial Control

The Companies Act, 2013 has introduced a new requirement for listed companies. Accordingly, the Board of Directors (Sec 134), Audit Committee (Sec 177) and Independent Directors (Sch. IV) are responsible for laying down Internal Financial Controls (IFC) to conform on adequacy and operating effectiveness of the framework for IFC.

Furthermore, under Sec 143 of the Companies Act, external auditors are required to separately issue opinion on the adequacy of IFC and the operating effectiveness of such controls. Considering this, all unlisted companies (public and private) have to gear up to meet the requirements of IFC. The only relief provided by the ICAI guidance note is that the scope of external audit will be restricted to financial reporting controls only.

The revised guidance note issued by the ICAI recently has also extended the requirement of opinion from external auditors to consolidated financial statements, thereby emphasizing the focus required on completing the management design and testing across all companies within a group.

Considering the limited timeframe available to ensure adherence to the requirements and also meet conditions of external auditors, companies need to immediately embark on this initiative.

Course Content:

• Introduction to IFC and its components
• Requirement of IFC under Companies Act, 2013
• IFC Project Scope
• Overall approach
• Understanding documentation with live examples and hands on experience
• SOX/IFC Global Scenario
• Regulatory requirements with perspective of similar global requirements
• Key Difference between IFC & Enterprise Risk Management
• Specific approach for
• financial reporting controls (benchmarked to ICAI guidance note)
  • operational controls (with reference to globally recognized control frameworks)
  • resilience controls (with reference to globally recognized control frameworks)
• Integrated reporting to:
  • Senior management
  • Audit committee
  • Board
• Assessment of Entity Level Controls
• Applicability
• Integration with internal audit
• Implementation timelines
• Materiality and scoping
• Meeting stakeholders requirements
• Overview of ICAI guidelines
• Assessing the design of controls with practical examples and hands on practice sessions
• Value addition approach
• Key Process and Controls Assessment
• IFC framework
• Assessing operating effectiveness along with practice sessions
• Focus from second year onward

Timings: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm , Registration begins at 9:00 am