A systematic analysis of internal control requirement in the light of scandals, standards and regulations and a coso based internal control list proposal for corporate businesses

The scandals in the past increased the importance of internal control (IC) and of the IC system (ICS) and created a global awareness. Many factors played a role in the formation of scandals. Issues such as the lack of ICS and not being operated effectively and their effectiveness not being subjected to control and supervision also played an important role. The issue of IC necessity and the effectiveness and oversight of ICS were been subject to a wide range of standards and regulations, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). The necessity of IC and effectiveness of ICS were tried to be guaranteed with standards/regulations. So, corporate and individual responsibilities for ICS and for its effectiveness have been significantly increased with standards/ regulations. Ensuring the effectiveness of the ICS is the guarantee of reliable information and accurate and reliable reporting. Besides, an effective ICS is important for some aspects(protecting assets and common interests of stakeholders/ achieving goals/ ensuring the profitability and efficiency of activities/ management and accounting control/ compliance with regulations, corporate management and ethical principles/ quality assurance/ CRM/ transparency/ accountability etc). In this regard, the main responsibility for the ICS and its monitoring was given to the board of directors of the company. The independent auditors were undertaken for the effectiveness of ICS to point out and give attestation in their reports. The effective ICS provides various benefits to the audit. As the effectiveness of the ICS increases, the audit risk and duration of audits decreases, the number of evidence the auditor needs to collect and the audit cost decreases. In our study, an internal checklist proposal is presented to be used to evaluate the existence and/or effectiveness of ICS. The internal checklist is compatible with COSO IC framework, the most comprehensive and most advanced model developed for businesses. It is evaluated that the COSO based IC list will provide benefit for the evaluation of effectiveness of ICS. IC list is hoped that it can be used by the board, audit committee, independent/internal auditor, advisory companies and researchers. Finally, using the proposed IC list can make it possible to determine the effectiveness of ICS and to draw attention upon the weaknesses/deficiencies and risks that need to be corrected and improved