I’ve been on a tour around the world in 2023. From Australia to South Africa to Brazil virtually. From the US to Germany to Dubai in person. If I wasn’t speaking at a conference, I was training, a huge chunk of which was Audit Report Writing.

Why so much report writing training in 2023?

Not because we haven’t recognized the importance of writing clearly and concisely in the past. We’ve always wanted our messages to be understandable for the reader quickly.

Somehow now, we’re finally focused on how to write shorter: shorter findings, shorter executive summaries, and shorter reports overall. And that means being able to get to the point and avoiding reader fatigue. This comes from focusing on our stakeholders, our readers. Bravo!

It also comes from realizing we don’t have to write EVERYTHING we know and find out during the audit. (That’s called working papers.) That was an AHA moment a participant shared at the end of our workshop.

Here are a few more AHA moments from other participants. I hope they give you ideas and inspire you to make a change, big or small, to write shorter audit reports, to take the pain out of audit report writing and editing, and create some magic for your readers:

• Try collaborative report writing and reviews,

• Use the IIA attributes to take readers by the hand through findings,

• Don’t over-aggregate findings,

• Use dynamic verbs in recommendations,

• A list of findings does not make an insightful executive summary.

Looking for more audit report writing inspiration?

Check my profile for upcoming webinars, workshops, and events.

Wishing you an amazing summer – the perfect time to take on a bit of learning so you can apply it to the rest of 2023!