Chartered Accountant · ICAI M.No. 153926 · FRN 136869W
Who is eligible
The law gives flexibility on who is the internal auditor: a Chartered Accountant or Cost Accountant (in practice or employed), or such other professional as the board decides. Crucially, an internal auditor can be an employee of the company or an outsourced firm — it does not have to be an independent practising CA the way a statutory audit does.
Independence still matters
Whoever does it should be independent of the function being audited — the person reviewing the accounts payable process shouldn’t be the one running it — so the findings are objective. To preserve independence, the statutory auditor cannot also be the internal auditor of the same company. Confirm the eligibility for companies where internal audit is mandatory.
A worked example
Example: a mid-sized company appoints an outsourced CA firm to run quarterly internal audits of its inventory and procurement, separate from its statutory auditor. A larger group might have an in-house internal audit team reporting to the audit committee. Either is valid, as long as the reviewer is independent of what they review. Our team can serve as your outsourced internal auditor.