Internal Auditing History

Internal auditing developed between 1900 and 1950. But, it was during the thirties and early forties that it became used worldwide. Brink was the first to publish a significant text on internal auditing. The Institute and the profession grew rapidly to the demanding needs of World War Two. It was also during this period that internal auditors began to be more concerned with more than a financial audit. Large organizations began to understand the true value of internal auditors, were they can perform a better service than only looking for accounting and input errors. This new concept of auditing had management acceptance because the recommendations made by internal auditors were more helpful than those provided by external auditors, moreover

The internal auditing function was basically another arm of the accounting function.

Knowing that the record keeping at that time was manually performed, after completions auditors were needed to check the accounting work in order to locate errors in data entries. Not to forget that manual processing also made fraud easier. Combining the need for uncovering errors and the need to catch misappropriations resulted in the raise of the role of internal auditors. Today, the internal auditor is an important part of the management team. Internal auditors play a vital role in ensuring that an organization is efficiently run, morally sound, technologically advanced, and safe from unnecessary risks. In a Statement of responsibilities of Internal Auditing issued by the Institute of Internal Auditors (1990) as part of the Standards framework, the section on objectives