1. Small Audit Shop Roundtable

2. Organizational Threats
Have small shops faced any problems that have threatened the audit function (e.g. budget cuts)?
What strategies are good for dealing with those threats?

3. Expectations
How do you balance the administrative expectations that are placed on all departments (e.g. payroll processing, united way committee, performance measures, and administrative meetings) with the need to put as much time as possible to audit projects?
How do you balance all the competing demands on limited time: risk-based audits, internal investigations, follow-up efforts, compliance with all admin/review requirements to retain certifications and pass peer reviews, management requests for special reviews?

4. Expectations
How can one person possibly do all that is recommended for an audit function and still have time for meaningful audits? (be the auditor, the consultant, the risk assessor, the compliance officer, the investigator, the monitor, and prepare for a peer review)
How do you explain to management that they are responsible for most of the above and you are technically just supposed to provide recommendations and verifications? (It seems that the gray area of responsibility seriously hampers independence) It would be helpful, as a one-person audit shop, if there was better guidance on how to prioritize the expectations.

5. Risk Assessment
What are some risks to your jurisdiction that you think are overlooked by management and/or the governing body?
Given the assumption that two auditors plus CAE aren’t enough to do everything, how hard is it to convince management that the risk-based efforts are the most likely to be productive?

6. Quality Assurance / Peer Review
What experiences and lessons have small shops learned through peer review?
Who do you get to verify your methodologies and reports?

7. Training
What are people doing for training (especially ways to keep costs low)?

8. Performance Measures for Internal Audit
What performance measures do you track for your internal audit shop?