10 Reasons Internal Controls Break Down - And How to Avoid Them in Your Organization

Business best practices, laws, regulations and accounting standards require that organizations build and document sound internal controls. And maintaining those controls and related daily actions is every bit as important as setting them up and writing them down. Yet despite best efforts, all controls have a tendency to fail over time. Not every control every day, but too many controls on too many days.

This session will address the real reasons why business internal controls weaken over time, and provide specific examples and suggestions managers, supervisors, auditors, and key control employees can use to reduce exposures from control failures.  

• Explore 10 reasons why controls fail – and what to do about them in your organization
• Recognize the importance of hard control procedures and soft control behaviors
• Understand how to implement a “How do I know?” culture at key control moments
• Identify the importance knowing and reacting to “The Quality Moment”
• Discover how to educate employees at all levels about Why a control is important – before addressing the How and When of the procedure
   

• Real world definition of internal controls and why they are critical in any business entity
• Quick assessment grid – to show participants where they are today and where they need to focus for better results
• Example Better! control procedures
• Example Better! control behaviors
• 10 recurring reasons why controls fail – and what to do about them
• Easy action steps to improve control design, implementation and maintenance

Building, implementing and maintaining sound yet efficient Internal controls is critical to the success of any business organization. Sound internal controls ensure:

• Effectiveness and efficiency of operations
• Reliability of financial reporting
• Compliance with laws and regulations

But these textbook concepts that often fail due to poor design, inadequate support, and basin human inattention over time.  In this program we attack the true ‘root cause reasons’ why controls fail, and lay out a blueprint for participants to follow to minimize that risk on their watch.
 

• CEO
• CFO
• Accounting and Finance Team 
• Operations Managers 
• Every Supervisor 
• Key Control Staff 
• Internal Auditing Department
• Compliance Team
• Chief Risk Officer
• Board members

This program brings measurable value to leaders in any organization, including for-profit business, not-for-profits, government entities at all levels, plus education from universities to local school districts.

John J. Hall, CPA is the founder and President of Hall Consulting, Inc., the creator of FraudPreventionPro.com (new in 2020), and the author of the award-winning book “Do What You Can! Simple Steps – Extraordinary Results”. John specializes in skills training programs and conference presentations for management groups, government and internal auditors, CPAs/CAs, Board members, and professional associations. Over 2,500 live in-person and virtual program presentations to date.

John has over 40 years of experience as an consultant, speaker, auditor, and business owner. He has worked in senior leadership positions in major corporations and international public accounting and consulting firms. John is a member of the National Speakers Association, the American Institute of CPAs, and the Institute of Internal Auditors.