Can you give us some details about the release, revision and interpretation of China's internal auditing standards?

On March 4th, 2003, the National Audit Office issued a new internal audit regulation, requiring China Institute of Internal Audit, enterprises, institutions and social organizations to implement it from May 6th, 2003. According to the Audit Law and relevant laws and regulations, China Institute of Internal Audit organized experts, internal audit practitioners and legal workers to work out a set of internal audit standards which are in line with international internal audit practices and suitable for China's national conditions for three years from the beginning of February to the end of 22. The first batch of internal auditing standards was issued and implemented on June 6, 2003. This is an important measure taken by China Institute of Internal Audit to promote the legalization, institutionalization and standardization of internal audit. The author participated in the drafting and demonstration of internal auditing standards from beginning to end, and now briefly explains its basic problems.

(1) In recent years, with the deepening of the reform of state-owned enterprises, the deep-seated problems of state-owned enterprises have become more and more prominent. How to establish and improve the corporate governance structure, optimize internal control, promote the effective use of enterprise resources and avoid fraud and waste has become a major problem facing the whole society, especially in the last two years, fraud cases of listed companies have emerged one after another, which makes everyone realize that only by establishing a complete supervision and control system can fraud, corruption and management problems be completely solved. In this supervision and control system, internal audit is an indispensable part. Internal auditing standards are an important part of the professional standard system of internal auditing, and it is also an authoritative standard to measure the quality of internal auditing by standardizing the practice behavior of internal auditing institutions and internal auditors. The formulation of this standard can promote the all-round development of internal audit in China and better serve the socialist market economy.

The formulation of internal audit standards will help the public understand the nature of internal audit work and the responsibilities of internal auditors, and improve their confidence in the internal audit profession. Internal audit is an independent and objective supervision and evaluation activity within an organization. By exerting its basic functions, internal audit can examine and expose illegal acts. At the same time, through the review and evaluation of business activities and internal control, internal audit can solve the problems existing in the organization itself, improve management efficiency and effectiveness, and thus promote the realization of organizational goals, which is a more important function of internal audit. China's internal audit was established in 1980s. After nearly two years of development, great progress has been made. By the end of February1year, there were 76,000 internal audit institutions in various enterprises and institutions, with internal audit practitioners193,000. However, there are some outstanding problems in China's internal audit work: ① Many organizations and the public do not realize the importance of internal audit work, and even position internal audit as the opposite of management; ② Internal audit lacks scientific theoretical guidance, and there is an operation mode of doing things by experience; ③ The responsibilities of internal auditors and the professional ethics they must possess are not clear. Based on the above situation, the internal audit standards are formulated to guide the internal audit work, clarify the responsibilities of internal audit institutions and personnel, improve the quality of internal audit and enhance the public's confidence in the internal audit profession.

Formulating internal auditing standards will help China's internal auditing industry to gradually internationalize. China has joined the WTO and gradually entered the international economic stage. The trend of global economic integration requires that China's internal audit profession can no longer stay in the stage of "behind closed doors", but should fully learn from the advanced theories, technologies and experiences of international internal audit, integrate China's internal audit career into the process of world internal audit integration, and promote the development of China's internal audit career. The internal audit in many developed countries has gone through decades of history. As an international organization specializing in internal auditing, the International Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has a history of six years, with more than 70,000 members distributed in more than 65,438+02 countries, and more than 65,438+05 regional chapters and 29 national chapters. IIA began to formulate internal auditing standards from the day of its establishment, and constantly revised them according to the actual situation, aiming at providing high-quality professional standards for internal auditing practice and promoting the development of internal auditing industry. In June of 2 1 year, IIA issued the latest Code of Practice for Internal Auditing, which was formally implemented on 20 10/month 22, setting off another climax of internal auditing development. In view of the accounting fraud cases of many large companies, the US Congress has formulated a series of new policies, which pay more attention to the internal audit of companies, improve the status of internal audit, and at the same time make internal audit face greater challenges.

China established China Institute of Internal Audit in 1987 and joined IIA. 1 in February of the same year. For more than 20 years, China Institute of Internal Auditing has actively carried out international cooperation, developed more than 3 members of the International Institute of Internal Auditors, and opened 1 multiple international registered internal auditors (CIA) test sites in China, which has achieved good results. In 22 years, China Institute of Internal Audit officially changed its name to China Institute of Internal Audit. This name change is not only formal, but also substantive. It rationalizes the relationship between China's internal audit professional organizations and the National Audit Office, and also makes China's internal audit professional organizations more adapt to the requirements of the market economy. Under this background, it is an inevitable need for China's internal audit industry to go international to draw lessons from international internal audit practice and formulate internal audit standards suitable for China's national conditions.

Enhance the adaptability of internal audit work, and truly make internal auditors audit and act according to law. From 65438 to 0994, China promulgated the Audit Law, which stipulated the internal audit in legal form and defined its legal status. From 65438 to 0995, the National Audit Office issued the Internal Audit Regulations, which further stipulated the internal audit institutions, personnel, responsibilities and authority. According to the requirements of these laws and regulations, China's internal audit work is conducted under the leadership and management of the National Audit Office and china institute of internal audit. At the same time, the Accounting Law, the People's Bank of China Law, the Commercial Bank Law, the Guidelines for the Articles of Association of Listed Companies, the Guidelines for the Governance of Listed Companies, the Measures for the Administration of Trust and Investment Companies, and the Interim Regulations on the Board of Supervisors of State-owned Key Financial Institutions have all made corresponding provisions on internal audit.

However, the provisions of the Audit Law and related laws and regulations are general, and the specific operation and implementation of internal audit work are not standardized. China's internal audit practice lacks a set of complete, scientific and authoritative guidelines to guide practice, and internal auditors have no business norms and unified business quality measurement standards when performing internal audit business, so they can't fully and thoroughly implement the audit law and related laws and regulations, and they can't really audit according to law. At the same time, the revision of laws and regulations is very difficult, and it is impossible to make necessary revisions in time to adapt to the changes in the situation and actual needs. Therefore, in order to formulate internal auditing standards and standardize auditing principles, auditing methods, auditing procedures, auditing methods and auditing reports according to international practices and China's national conditions, they can be constantly revised with the changes of the environment without going through the legislature. This can greatly increase the adaptability of internal audit work and realize auditing and handling affairs according to law.

Formulating internal auditing standards is helpful to improve the professional level of internal auditing in China, improve the professional quality of internal auditors, and make internal auditing work institutionalized. Formulating internal auditing standards is a very arduous and meticulous work, which requires the joint efforts of many experts and practitioners, and can only be successfully completed by learning from the successful cases of internal auditing in advanced foreign countries. With the change of environment, it is necessary to study how the internal auditing standards adapt to this change in theory and practice. For example, internal audit has penetrated into enterprise management, which requires attention to the coordination of internal control, risk management and corporate governance. So how to revise the internal auditing standards? What terms have been revised? To what extent? This requires a lot of theoretical and practical research. Therefore, the formulation of internal audit standards is helpful to improve the professional level of internal audit in China and promote the development of related academic research. Meanwhile, in the whole auditing system, China has formulated independent auditing standards and national auditing standards. Because internal audit is similar to private audit and government audit in many aspects, internal audit standards can learn from independent audit standards and national audit standards in similarity, and study and formulate differences according to the specific needs of internal audit. This can not only reduce the cost, but also make internal audit, private audit and government audit develop together, help the public understand the purpose of audit and the role of auditors in the market economy, and build public confidence in audit.

The development history of internal audit in China is not long, and the professional quality of internal auditors is uneven. The professional ability and technical level of internal auditors are the key factors to determine the quality of internal audit in China. The internal audit standards have made specific provisions on internal audit work and provided direct and specific guidance for employees to carry out business. Practicing under the guidance of internal auditing standards requires employees to have a process from understanding to familiarity with application, which in itself is a process in which internal auditors constantly learn and improve their own quality and skills. Improving the professional level of internal audit and the professional quality of internal auditors, improving the public's confidence in internal audit and narrowing the distance between internal audit and private audit and government audit will certainly institutionalize and modernize internal audit.

(b) The formulation of internal auditing standards is a complex and highly technical task. From the beginning of February to the end of 22, under the leadership of the National Audit Office, China Institute of Internal Audit set up a standards committee, which was responsible for drafting, revising and demonstrating internal auditing standards. The Standards Committee organized experts and practitioners from all walks of life to study and systematically demonstrate the internal auditing standards for many times, and held Jiujiang meeting, Beijing meeting, Dalian meeting, Suzhou meeting, Shenzhen meeting and Qingdao meeting successively. At the end of 2002, the Standards Committee finally discussed and demonstrated the first batch of published standards in Beijing, and in February 2003, it was submitted to the third meeting of the fourth Council of China Institute of Internal Audit for discussion and adoption. The formulation of internal audit standards is divided into the following steps:

1. Selected project. According to the needs of internal audit practice and the development trend of international internal audit, the Standards Committee solicited the opinions of experts and practitioners from all sides, and selected the internal audit problems that need to be solved urgently as internal audit standards (including professional ethics, basic standards and some specific standards). Approved by China Institute of Internal Audit. The Standards Committee specially considers the following factors when selecting projects:

(1) Pay equal attention to financial audit and management audit. According to a survey conducted by the International Institute of Internal Auditors, 54% of senior executives believe that internal auditors should focus on management audit; In Asia, 6 1% executives believe that internal audit should focus on management audit and play the role of enterprise consultant. According to the statistical survey of China Institute of Internal Audit, before 1998, the financial revenue and expenditure audit accounted for more than 5%; From 1999 to 2 1, only 32% of financial revenue and expenditure audits and 68% of management audits were conducted. This requires that when selecting standard projects, not only financial matters should be considered, so as to give full play to the negative anti-fraud and positive benefit enhancement functions of internal audit, but also management matters should be considered, so as to give full play to the positive benefit enhancement and value appreciation functions of modern internal audit. Paying attention to financial matters is mainly to strengthen the responsibility of internal auditors to prevent and review fraud.

(2) The influence of informatization on internal audit. With the development of information system, the working environment of internal auditors is becoming more and more automated, so the difference between EDP auditors and general internal auditors is narrowing. Due to the automation environment, the information system spans multiple departments, which makes the internal audit focusing on traditional vertical departments gradually evolve into cross-departmental internal audit.

(3) The occupational risks brought by bad social environment to internal audit. As far as the whole social environment is concerned, all kinds of fraud and fraud emerge one after another, and the social moral situation is not optimistic. Violations of professional ethics in the judicial, medical and auditing industries are not uncommon. This bad social environment has brought great professional risks to the internal audit community, so we should attach great importance to the formulation of internal audit standards.

(4) The standard should be higher than the actual level of internal audit in China. Internal auditing standards are designed to guide internal auditing practice, so they must be higher than reality, otherwise we will either wander at a low level or aim too high and unrealistic.

2. Draft the first draft. According to the identified projects, the Standards Committee conducts investigation and studies and drafts the first draft. The specific operation method is to set up a special formulation team for each internal audit standard project. The composition of each formulation team should fully consider the principle of combining theory with practice, consisting of university professors, heads of internal audit institutions of large and medium-sized enterprises (including state-owned and private enterprises) and heads of local internal audit associations. At the same time, the differences of internal audit in eastern, central and western regions with different levels of economic development are also considered. After a lot of practical research, the members of the formulation team discussed and combed many times and formed the first draft of internal auditing standards.

Step 3 ask for advice. China Institute of Internal Audit extensively solicited opinions from relevant departments, local internal audit associations, member units and research institutions on the first draft of internal auditing standards submitted by the Standards Committee, and held seven seminars on internal auditing standards within three years, which made a careful study and discussion on the first draft of internal auditing standards. Experts attending the meeting include: president, vice president, secretary general and consultant of China Institute of Internal Audit; Member of standards committee; Leaders of the Economic and Trade Department, the Legal Department, the Foreign Investment Department and the Investment Department of the National Audit Office, experts and scholars from Xiamen University, Wuhan University, Sun Yat-sen University, Jinan University, Nankai University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Chongqing University, Xi Jiaotong University, zhengzhou institute of aeronautical industry management, Northern Jiaotong University, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Beijing Technology and Business University, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and Nanjing Audit University; Responsible persons of internal audit institutions of large and medium-sized enterprises such as China Aviation Second Group Company, Ministry of Railways, Capital Iron and Steel Company, Offshore Oil Corporation, Oil and Gas Corporation, China General Technology (Group) Holding Company, State Power Company, Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company, China Agricultural Bank, and local internal audit associations, etc. They have made in-depth and detailed analysis and research on every item of internal auditing standards (including professional ethics, basic standards and several specific standards), and put forward a lot of revised opinions on internal auditing standards from the aspects of scientificity, reality and foresight.

4. Modify the final version. The Standards Committee fully considered the opinions put forward by various seminars on internal auditing standards and the feedback from other parties, and revised each item of internal auditing standards three or four times. The revised draft should be submitted to the Secretariat in china institute of internal audit. At an appropriate time, China Institute of Internal Audit held a meeting to finalize the internal auditing standards, inviting experts from various fields to attend, and finally inspected and reviewed the standards and finalized them.