Executive Summaries in Audit Reports: Love ‘em or hate ‘em?

EVERYONE wants shorter audit reports, right? Have you considered the length and content of your executive summary recently, and how that impacts your overall report length?

I worked with two audit clients at the beginning of the summer to assess their report structures with a goal to reduce the length, only include relevant information, and of course, include the RIGHT information.

The results were transformative.

We assessed the value of each section of the executive summary, and for those sections, we kept in the summary, what specific content should be in those sections.

Some of this was straightforward, e.g. for scope.

But for other sections of the report, we had very serious discussions:

• Do we need a one-page overall summary?
• What goes in an audit opinion/conclusion?
• How should an objective statement be written?
• To what extent should audit findings be summarized?
• What should the order of the various sections be?

The results were magical.

Content that meets stakeholder needs. Well organized. Brief. Fluff gone. Repetition gone. Nice-to-haves out of the opinion and placed appropriately or eliminated altogether. Short and sweet. And looking good, too, if I may say so myself!?

Working hand-in-hand with clients to achieve these results brings me joy.

I’d like to share a little of that joy with you.

I’m running a VIP Audit Reporting Masterclass. It’s two hours of practical advice on real executive summaries and findings. We’ll assess what’s not working and how to remediate that. I’ll show you what I do, so you can do it with your team.

You’ll have the opportunity to be hot seated when you’ll get your questions answered and receive feedback on your reports if you want it – to the extent of what you can disclose publicly.

Reach out if you want to find out how to join.

Wishing you every success with your executive summaries, and I hope to see you at the VIP Masterclass.