Treasury Audit
A practical starting point for assessing whether cash, banking, borrowing and liquidity activities are safeguarded, authorised and accurately recorded.
What are we trying to establish?
Determine whether cash, banking, borrowing and liquidity activities are safeguarded, authorised and accurately recorded.
Risks worth paying attention to
What should you request?
- Bank account listing and mandates
- Bank statements and reconciliations
- Cash flow forecasts
- Payment and transfer approvals
- Loan and facility agreements
- Investment records
- Foreign exchange transactions
- Signatory and online banking access lists
Understand the process before testing.
- Who initiates, reviews and approves transactions?
- Which duties should be separated?
- What system controls and approval limits apply?
- How are exceptions identified, approved and monitored?
- How does management know key controls actually operated?
Practical tests you can perform
Independently review bank reconciliations
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Test payments and transfers to approvals
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Review stale and unusual reconciling items
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Confirm bank accounts and authorised signatories
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Review online banking access and tokens
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Compare cash forecasts with actual cash flows
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Test loan balances, interest and covenant compliance
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Review foreign exchange transactions and exposures
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Things that should make you look deeper
- Transactions or activities outside normal patterns
- Missing or retrospective approvals
- Repeated exceptions without root-cause action
- Manual adjustments with weak supporting evidence
- Key controls dependent on one person
- Management reports that cannot be reconciled to source records
Questions that can open up the process
- What can go wrong in this process?
- Which controls are most important, and who performs them?
- Where does the process depend heavily on manual intervention?
- Which exceptions occur most often, and why?
- What information does management use to know the process is working?
Need a more detailed checklist?
Steal My Checklist contains ready-to-use audit procedures designed to help you structure fieldwork across key business areas.
Get Steal My Checklist