External Auditing and Internal Auditing

This week, I had another interview with a professional called Mr. David Martinez. He is the Chief Audit Executive. At this interview, I learned a lot about external and internal auditing. One of the big differences he noticed between the two was that although both areas experience conflict, internal auditing came into touch with more problems. Hence, "internal" auditors work inside a company to make sure that the company's financial statements are in order, and external auditors mostly work in accounting firms. External auditors have more power than internal auditors in the aspect that companies and businesses need them to confirm that their documents are factual and correct. I had asked, "Why we need external auditors when the internal auditors could just confirm the documents themselves?" Mr. David Martinez responded that others would not trust that the internal auditors to accurately do the documents, because they are part of the company and could have been influenced. On the other hand, external auditors are not associated with a particular business, and their main job is to verify that the documents are accurate.

Both of the individuals that I've interviewed have said similar things about certain characteristics that someone interested in accounting would need to have; integrity and analytical skills to look beyond the numbers. I am interested in seeing whether this theme will continue to appear in all my other interviews, but I am hoping to learn other skills as well. This next week will be interesting as I will research more about auditing and accounting.