Intuitive and user-friendly audit management system benefits student learning curve

TeamMate solutions work well in a university setting

Located on the island of Oahu, this reputable Hawaiian University is home to 2,500 students representing over 70 countries. Being part of a small campus gives students ample opportunity to gain educational experiences outside of the classroom through internships, research projects, and real-life work experience.

The university’s Director of Compliance and Internal Audit has been instrumental in implementing a student employment model within the internal audit department. The program not only resources internal audit engagements for the university but also provides accounting majors with a high-impact work experience that reinforces educational concepts. The Director of Compliance and Internal Audit typically has four-to-six students working 19 hours each week when school is in session and full-time during breaks.

While undergoing a complete staff turn-over every 18-24 months as students graduate can be challenging, using an intuitive, user-friendly audit management system, like Wolters Kluwer TeamMate, makes training and teaching much easier.

TeamMate is not only instrumental in helping this Hawaiian university shape the next generation of internal auditors, but the audit management system is an invaluable tool for managing the complexities that come with the university’s eight-year audit cycle.

“With such a prolonged audit cycle, we only get one shot to get it right, so we have to be nimble,” said the Director of Compliance and Internal Audit. “The standardization and consistency that TeamMate provides allow us to target the exact issues that we want to audit, and then easily generate a report and roll that information out to the larger organization.”

Using an automated audit management system also makes things more manageable for the Director of Compliance and Internal Audit, who has cerebral palsy that affects fine motor skills. After working with cumbersome manual processes that were difficult to navigate early in his internal audit career, he took to TeamMate “like a fish to water”. In 2014, after joining this Hawaiian university, his first order of business was to implement TeamMate.

“I rely on TeamMate to be more efficient in my work. It has greatly improved my productivity and quite honestly, I’m not sure where I’d be in my career without it,” said the Director of Compliance and Internal Audit.