Leverage Internal Audit Methodology

€890,00

17th November, 2026 | 13:30 - 17:00 CET
18th November, 2026 | 13:30 - 17:00 CET

Fundamentals first – before bad habits and AI shortcuts set in.

An audit report is internal audit’s business card – for many stakeholders, it’s the only contact with audit they will ever have. Yet most new auditors learn testing first, documentation second, and writing on the job – if at all.

This workshop builds the foundation in the right order: what audit reports are for, who actually reads them, and what those readers need – because stakeholders drive what auditors write. From there, it moves to the audit finding, the building block of every report, and what makes a finding effective.

AI will happily draft a finding for anyone. But a writer who doesn’t yet know what a good finding looks like cannot judge what AI hands them. This workshop builds that judgment – brains first, then AI.

This is a working workshop: activities build the skill of constructing effective findings step by step, with group and trainer feedback – participants leave having written real findings, not just heard about them.

What changes:

– New auditors understand the why before the how – reports exist to change something, not to document effort.

– Stakeholder thinking starts on day one – who reads audit reports, and what each reader needs from them.

– Findings stop being intimidating – writers know the pieces, how they fit, and where to start.

– First drafts become usable drafts – reviewers inherit workable material instead of blank-page struggles.

– Confidence arrives early – before the fear of the empty page sets in.

For: New internal auditors – and anyone writing their first audit reports, whatever path brought them to audit.

Next step: Deep Dive: Findings, when they’re ready to go deeper.

Working material: Everything is provided – no prior audits, findings, or reports needed. Participants learn what a good finding looks like from the start – not from past reports sitting in the archive.

As an audit reporting expert, Tracie addresses audit's core challenge: deriving and communicating results that add value to stakeholders. She guides teams in redesigning outdated audit report templates and builds their capability to deliver exceptional reporting at the intersection of human judgment and AI-driven communication.

Tracie has trained 13,000+ international internal auditors across industries. She is a keynote speaker at audit conferences worldwide.

She launched Inspiring Women in Audit in 2024, the industry podcast amplifying women's voices in internal audit around the globe. The podcast has a supporting LinkedIn community of over 600 internal audit professionals.

Deep Dive: Findings

€890,00

23rd November, 2026 | 13:30 - 17:00 CET
24th November, 2026 | 13:30 - 17:00 CET

Give your readers findings they never have to decode.

Stakeholders judge internal audit one finding at a time. A strong finding builds credibility and gets action – a weak one wastes the reader’s time, and audit pays for it in trust.

This workshop is squarely focused on writing audit findings: guidance, language, and exercises for each attribute in line with the IIA’s Global Internal Audit Standards – one red thread from the finding title to agreed actions that mitigate the identified risk and pave the way to achieving the organization’s objectives.

The bar is high and specific: findings the reader understands in one pass and answers with “got it – we’ll do it.” When findings hit that bar, the conversation with audit clients changes – less negotiating over words, more discussion of the risk and what it means to the business. And the benefit travels upward: the executive summary is distilled from the findings – stronger findings make a stronger summary.

This is a working workshop: concepts are explored through discussion and exercises, with writing practice and live critique from the group and the trainer in every round – ensuring participants leave writing stronger findings, starting with the very next finding they draft.

What changes:

– Findings are complete and coherent – nothing missing, nothing padded, every element pulling in the same direction.

– Risks resonate – readers feel them and see what they mean for the business.

– Readers finish each finding knowing exactly what happens next – and why it’s worth doing.

– Writing gets faster – writers know what goes where and why, so the circling stops.

– Review rounds decrease – findings arrive closer to final, and the wording holds when audit clients push back.

Working material: The strongest results come from working on your own writing – participants are encouraged to bring anonymized findings from their own audits, and realistic practice material is provided as an alternative. For in-house deliveries, the team works on its own findings in its own confidential environment.

Tracie has trained 13,000+ international internal auditors across industries. She is a keynote speaker at audit conferences worldwide.

Deep Dive: Executive Summary

€890,00

1st December, 2026 | 13:30 - 17:00 CET
2nd December, 2026 | 13:30 - 17:00 CET

Connect the dots – don’t hand your board a puzzle.

For your most senior stakeholders, the executive summary is the audit report – it’s all they read. Too many executive summaries are still a list of findings, and a list is not a message.

This workshop is dedicated entirely to the executive summary: what belongs there, what doesn’t, and how to write an audit conclusion that delivers a message – insight the reader can act on, not a recap of the fieldwork results. Guidance, language, and exercises from the audit conclusion through the key issues, including tone, balance, and formality for the most senior readers in the organization.

The bar: a senior reader – audit committee member, board member, C-suite – understands the message in one pass, unaided. What happened, why it matters, and what happens next, without ever flipping back to the detail. That’s when the executive summary starts doing its job.

This is a working workshop: concepts are explored through discussion and exercises, with writing practice and live critique from the group and the trainer, ensuring participants leave able to turn any set of findings into one clear message.

What changes:

– Executive summaries deliver a conclusion – one clear message, not a findings recap.

– Insight replaces repetition – readers get the what, the why, the so what, and the now what.

– Senior readers act after one reading – no clarifying emails, no “what does this mean for us?”

– Writing the executive summary gets faster – the hardest page in the report stops being written last, worst, and under the most pressure.

– Conversations at the top change – less explaining the report, more discussing the risks in it.

For: Auditors-in-charge and above – whoever writes, assembles, or owns the executive summary.

Recommended prerequisite (not required): Deep Dive: Findings. The executive summary is distilled from the findings – if the findings are weak, no summary can save them.

Working material: The strongest results come from working on your own writing – participants ideally bring an anonymized report from their own audits to work with; realistic practice material is provided as an alternative. For in-house deliveries, the team works on its own reports in its own confidential environment.

Trainer:
Tracie Marquardt is a 2024 and 2025 Beacon Award recipient and sought-after Audit Results Strategist. She helps Chief Audit Executives and their teams transform audit results through communication, leadership, and productivity.
As an audit reporting expert, Tracie addresses audit's core challenge: deriving and communicating results that add value to stakeholders. She guides teams in redesigning outdated audit report templates and builds their capability to deliver exceptional reporting at the intersection of human judgment and AI-driven communication.
Tracie has trained 13,000+ international internal auditors across industries. She is a keynote speaker at audit conferences worldwide.
She launched Inspiring Women in Audit in 2024, the industry podcast amplifying women's voices in internal audit around the globe. The podcast has a supporting LinkedIn community of over 600 internal audit professionals.

2027 Audit Challenge Conference Series

€990,00

Early Bird: 2027 Audit Challenge Conference Series

€790,00