See Also:
Total Quality Management
Capital Structure Management
Activity Based Management (ABM)
Retainage Management and Collection
Management Definition
Management Audit Definition
A management audit can be defined as an audit which analyzes the effectiveness of the management team of a company. The purpose of this is seven-fold: understand current practices, relate these to company financials, suggest new procedures which will improve the efficiency of managers, present a financial gain related to these new procedures, and create benchmarks and projections for the future. Finally, a management audit letter is the last piece of material shared with the client; it is a report of the findings.
Management Audit Explanation
The management audit process can be explained by the auditing of both the management method as a whole as well as key management staff. This is important to establish the effectiveness of both the leaders of the department as well as how it performs as a team. In this way, it can fill the purpose of a staff audit or performance audit, depending on the scope of the company.
Management Audit Example
For example, Stan is an auditor for a major, Fortune 500 auditing firm. Rather than focusing on the accounting side of the process, Stan has another focus: management. His work, analytic in nature, involves paying attention to the qualitative as well as quantitative factors surrounding the process of managing client companies. Stan loves his work because he gets to attack a new problem constantly.
Recently, Stan has begun work with a new client. To serve this client, as well as all the others, will require application of fundamentals while still customizing the project to the specific needs of the customer. Management audits generally use certain processes as a control technique while applying industry specific analysis techniques.
Evaluation & Management
Stan begins by asking the initial evaluation and management audit with questionnaire forms. These questions lay the groundwork for him to begin the process. Next, he looks at company financials. This tells him how much all of the management operations are effecting company profits. He continues the process with a number of variables until he understands the company quite well.
Completion
Stan finally completes his management audit. From this he can present his audit to the client company board of directors. His assessment with leaders improve the processes which support company revenue creation. His assessment has several gems of information but one stands above the others: a key manager in the company is not as effective as expected. The company will deal with the problem in a way they see fit.
Stan loves his work. Though sometimes he has to provide negative feedback, he appreciates that he is the messenger which leads businesses to the path of success. With his skills in the process of performing a management audit, Stan will help clients, his employer, and himself. If you want to find out how you can become a valuable financial leader, download the 7 Habits of Highly Effective CFOs for free.
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