Ideagen Internal Audit enables CAFOD internal audit team to be more resilient
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) is an international charity and the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. The charity aims to achieve a positive impact for people, communities, and the environment whilst amplifying local voices and leaderships
Chrispin Deigh, Mark Senfuma-Mukiibi, and Paul Grady support these goals as a team by planning and conducting the charity’s internal audits, and providing advisory services regarding compliance, ranging from due diligence, risk management, and fraud investigation.
Working together as Internal Audit and Compliance Officers for CAFOD, Chrispin explains: “Our approach focuses on the analysis and management of risks.
The goal of the team is to address CAFOD’s trustees and executive’s highest priority risks.”
The Challenge
The main challenge for the team at CAFOD was living up to the multiple expectations set by various stakeholders. The team were presented with the significant task of providing more in-depth insight on risks in areas such as cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, third-party relationships, IT governance, money laundering, counter-terrorism and fraud.
Chrispin explains: “We needed a product to help us deliver audits from the annual internal audit plan that addressed stakeholder’s critical needs and strategic business risks in a streamlined, efficient manner.
“Prior to Ideagen, all audits were conducted manually, using in-house templates. This was very time-consuming and often inconsistent when working in a team of three, so we needed a way to ensure robust uniformity when undertaking audits.”
The Challenge
The main challenge for the team at CAFOD was living up to the multiple expectations set by various stakeholders. The team were presented with the significant task of providing more in-depth insight on risks in areas such as cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, third-party relationships, IT governance, money laundering, counter-terrorism and fraud.
Chrispin explains: “We needed a product to help us deliver audits from the annual internal audit plan that addressed stakeholder’s critical needs and strategic business risks in a streamlined, efficient manner.
“Prior to Ideagen, all audits were conducted manually, using in-house templates. This was very time-consuming and often inconsistent when working in a team of three, so we needed a way to ensure robust uniformity when undertaking audits.”
Ideagen Internal Audit allows us to unify our audit work, making sure all templates are coherent with the ability to conduct and arrive at the same conclusion of any given audit, improving our team’s performance measures.
The solution
CAFOD needed a product that was going to operate in accordance with IIA standards and its commitment to value enhancement and continuous improvement.
“We required a solution that allowed us to track audit recommendations and conduct audits remotely.
“Ideagen Internal Audit allows us to unify our audit work, making sure all templates are coherent with the ability to conduct and arrive at the same conclusion of any given audit, improving our team’s performance measures,” explains Chrispin.
The enterprise risk management (ERM) module gave the team a more comprehensive understanding of how to manage and assess the charity’s risks, improving efficiency and reducing time spent on audits.
The results
Since implementing Ideagen Internal Audit, CAFOD immediately started to witness the benefits, including:
- The ability to view all risks in one place
- Consistent reporting
- Reduced travel through remote audits
- Overview of all tracked actions and recommendations
- Tracked audits through all offices in the country
The flexible and user-friendly interface of Ideagen Internal Audit has given the team the confidence to deliver effective, consistent, and efficient audits in a streamlined process, alongside enhancing team resilience.
“We operate in a large number of countries, with external contracts with many organisations.
Therefore, we have several complex functions and systems in place that need to be configured into the universe of our audits. It is a complicated process and Ideagen streamlines this.”
Intuitive internal audit software that connects everything and everyone in your audit universe.
Working with Ideagen
Chrispin, Mark and Paul were unanimous in their recommendation of Ideagen: “The support we have received so far is fantastic, from the implementation team to the support team.
We really feel like the product has been tailored exactly to our needs.”