This session is designed to focus on the Control Environment and the five separate principles that support this component.
The Control Environment is defined as the overall attitude, awareness, and actions of directors and management (i.e. "those charged with governance") regarding the internal control system and its importance to the entity. The Control Environment is named as the first component within COSO 2013.
COSO 2013 maintains the same five components previously identified within the 1992 framework. These include: • Control Environment • Risk Assessment • Control Activities • Information & Communication • Monitoring
Each component is now defined by separate principles that underlie the component. Management and the external auditors must understand each of these principles and be able to adequately support that they exist, are appropriately designed and functioning. In addition, the components must effectively work in combination to provide for a positive attestation to internal controls.
This session is designed to focus on the Control Environment and the five separate principles that support this component.
The session will dissect the five principles and important concepts that companies need to understand and support in order to provide that the principles are in place and functioning. We will also discuss concepts related to mapping the principles to controls within the organization.
Field of Study: Auditing
Lynn Fountain has over 45 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 24 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Ms. Fountain has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. In 2011, as the Chief Audit Executive for an international construction/ engineering firm, she was involved in the active investigation of a joint venture fraud. The investigation included work with the FBI and ultimately led to indictment of the perpetrators and recovery of $13M. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own training and consulting business and is a regular trainer for the AICPA. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. -“Leading The Internal Audit Function” and -“Ethics and The Internal Auditor Political Dilemma” were published by Taylor & Francis In addition Ms. Fountain was a contributing author to the certification program exam for the National Association of Accountants. She also has certificate programs on various on-line platforms. Ms. Fountain has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).
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