Technology Audit Best Practices

Technology audits answer critical questions about the technology estate. Audits uncover the unknown and validate the known. Follow these best practices and you’ll be sure to get the most out of your telecom, mobility, and IT auditing practice.

Best Practice #1: Validate invoice-to-contract compliance

Validating invoice charge accuracy is central to financial auditing. This best practice can and should be performed as a historical audit to validate accuracy, uncover errors and over-charges, and establish a point-in-time baseline of invoice accuracy; however, historical audits are not a permanent fix to invoice inaccuracies. The best practice for maintaining optimal financial control is to validate all telecom, mobility, and IT invoices for all assets, services, and licenses before payment.

Best Practice #2: Perform invoice-to-inventory validation

Confirming an invoice charge is billed at a contracted rate is critical but confirming that the asset, service, or license associated with the charge exists is equally important. Inventory is the master record that identifies assets, services, and licenses that rightfully belong in the telecom, mobility, and IT environment. The best practice for invoice-to-inventory validation is to verify the items on the invoice align with an active inventory element as the invoice is processed.

Best Practice #3: Perform physical asset and service validation

Physical inspection to verify where an asset or service is located is a valuable audit practice. Unlike the previous best practices, this practice does not need to be completed monthly. Use conditional triggers such as technology replacement projects, M&A events, and business model changes to initiate physical asset and service validation activites.

Best Practice #4: Perform asset/service/license-to-employee/user validation

Like a physical asset and service audit, confirming that users have, need, and use the assets, services, and licenses assigned to them serves as another audit check to improve telecom, mobility, and IT management control.

Best Practice #5: Root cause analysis (RCA)

Audits identify accuracy and exceptions. Exceptions are then investigated and cleared. This is not the end of the audit process, though. Before the audit process terminates, it is vital to examine audit results, determine why exceptions occurred, and implement measures to minimize exception recurrence.