Many business leaders are eager to adopt AI, putting more pressure on audit and compliance professionals to expand their coverage and respond faster to emerging risks. But as in most organizations, your audit team is likely expected to meet the growing audit demands across the audit process without any increase in budget or headcount.
PwC notes that there comes a point in AI adoption where budget and resource capacity limit internal auditors’ ability to keep pace with emerging risks. To drive greater efficiency, new technology is needed. Automating audit planning has moved from a “nice-to-have” to a priceless tool. But how do you find ROI in audit planning and risk assessment?
Why Audit Planning and Risk Assessment Are ROI Goldmines
The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) recommends that GRC professionals conduct audit planning and risk assessment for every internal audit to align it with organizational goals. But these two processes are among the most time-intensive and repetitive parts of auditing. You have to:
- Collect and consolidate data from multiple sources to get a complete view of operations and controls
- Evaluate risk factors to identify areas most likely to impact your organization’s objectives
- Prioritize audits to focus resources where they deliver the greatest value and improve overall audit quality
Done manually, these activities can consume a significant portion of audit teams’ bandwidth, leaving less time for analysis and decision-making. And the hidden costs are easy to underestimate.
For example, spreadsheets and manual data consolidation increase the risk of errors that can compromise audit results. Correcting these errors ties your team to repeated reworks that drain resources throughout the audit cycle. What’s more, these inefficiencies can reduce data security and slow down audit processes and compound in every engagement, limiting your team’s ability to respond quickly to emerging risks.
Conversely, because planning and risk assessment set the direction for audit workflow, improvement at this stage has a significant downstream impact. Automating audit planning reduces manual processes to free auditors’ time for judgment and analysis. You’ll also get a more efficient auditing process that delivers measurable ROI.
Where Traditional Approaches Fall Short
The traditional approach to risk assessment and planning addresses audit fundamentals. But on its own, it falls short in the face of modern automation in auditing, with real cost implications.
Static Risk Assessments Age Quickly
When your organization adopts artificial intelligence and agile operating models, the validity of static risk assessment comes into question. Annual or semi-annual assessments can’t keep pace with the rapidly changing organization risk profile and regulatory compliance stemming from these innovative technologies.
Even so, Protiviti reports that in industries such as healthcare, most organizations still heavily rely on static assessments, with well over half (61%) completing risk assessments just once a year. Only 22% of organizations assess risk continuously.
The problem with static risk assessments is that they’re often based on outdated data. Teams may overlook emerging issues and misprioritize risks, reducing the relevance and effectiveness of risk audits.
Audit Planning Relies on Historical Data and Anecdotal Input
Many internal audit teams still use historical data and anecdotal input to plan audits. PwC reports that only 10% of risk leaders are using advanced and predictive analytics to manage risks, with another 14% exploring or recently started using technology and data for risk management.
Historical audit data provides useful context. However, it lags behind what’s actually changing in the business and can embed outdated priorities in your planning.
Manual Data Coordination Slows the Planning Process
During planning, auditors coordinate inputs from several stakeholders and consolidate data across systems. When manual handoffs rely on emails, spreadsheets, meetings and follow-ups, assessments become time-consuming and prone to errors.
Auditors Spend Time Compiling Data Instead of Interpreting It
In traditional audit planning and risk assessment, your team spends significant time gathering and consolidating data for audit reports. As your organization adopts modern technologies, the audit scope expands. Auditors might end up overloaded with administrative tasks instead of responding to emerging risks.
Where Audit Automation Delivers Immediate, Measurable ROI
When you think of the ROI of automating audit planning, the first returns that come to mind are tangible, measurable gains in several key areas.
Data Aggregation and Normalization
Audit teams often spend hours gathering data from multiple systems, such as ERP, GRC, prior audits and incident logs. Automation technologies consolidate these inputs into a single, standardized view, so your team won’t be looking for a needle in a haystack using statistical sampling methods. It reduces the risk of errors and makes planning cycles faster, freeing more time for risk analysis and strategic decision-making.
Risk Scoring and Prioritization
Before an audit, you have to analyze risk and determine the order of mitigation. With the manual prioritization of traditional audit planning, risk scoring is likely subjective and inconsistent across teams.
Automation allows you to apply rule-based scoring to achieve uniformity. If you’re unsure of a risk score, you can use data analytics and machine learning to run predictive scenario modeling and weigh emerging risks. From these predictive insights, you can make confident prioritization decisions for your organization.
Audit Framework Management
Manual audit portfolio management often lags behind organizational changes, introducing gaps in coverage or overlapping audits. With automation, you can update the scope of areas subject to internal audit in your organization in real time. Achieve broader and more accurate coverage without expanding headcount, effectively reducing scope creep and minimizing missed audit areas.
Where AI Adds the Most Strategic Value
You can’t measure all returns from automation on the balance sheet. Beyond direct ROI, automating audit planning offers strategic benefits that amplify your team’s ability to interpret complex data and make informed decisions.
Pattern Recognition and Trend Analysis
AI-based GRC software can process data more than 1,000 times faster than a human, with extreme precision and consistency. By automating risk assessment and planning, your team can analyze large volumes of data to detect patterns that humans might miss and uncover issues before they escalate.
Risk Signal Monitoring
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners states that organizations with proactive data monitoring achieve a 50% reduction in median fraud losses, from $200,000 to $100,000. Continuous monitoring helps you flag deviations or emerging signals in real time in financial transactions.
Instead of relying solely on periodic risk assessment, your team of auditors can respond proactively to mitigate risks before problems escalate. Automated fraud detection also reduces the likelihood of costly surprises in financial audits.
Recommendation and Scenario Support
Using generative AI, you can simulate the impact of changes to internal controls and processes to evaluate potential outcomes and prioritize resources efficiently. From the predictive insights, you can inform your planning decisions with a forward-looking perspective.
Common ROI Traps To Avoid
Most GRC professionals today are automating audit planning and risk assessment. But tools don’t create value on their own. People do.
To help you capture real, measurable benefit, here are common traps to look out for:
- Over-automating judgment-based decisions, which can weaken conclusions and undermine audit quality
- Chasing AI features without process maturity, which means automation replicates inefficiencies instead of eliminating them
- Measuring ROI only in cost savings instead of value created and strategic impact
- Ignoring changes in audit management, which can prevent automation from delivering its promised benefits
- Treating automation as a one-time project, limiting its lasting value
Free Your Auditors To Do What Humans Do Best
Onspring offers a flexible, AI-powered platform for workflow automation. Reduce manual tasks so your auditors save time, improve coverage and make risk-based decisions with confidence.
Beyond saving hours, you get strategic benefits that human auditors on your team can take advantage of to make more informed judgment analyses. Download our Build a Better Audit Plan for Stronger Audit Outcomes ebook today and learn more about how you can use automation to eliminate planning bottlenecks.
