How can quality assurance and visualisation make internal audit findings actionable?

The EU4PFM summer training series for the State Customs Service’s Internal Audit Department continued with a follow-up session on reporting and quality. EU4PFM experts on Public Internal Financial Control (PIFC) Manfred van Kesteren and Markus Erlmoser led the discussion.

Manfred van Kesteren continued with the quality assurance topic. The expert stressed that quality problems usually leave signals before they become findings. His advice: don’t read one signal in isolation — combine file evidence, skills information and feedback from report recipients.

Markus Erlmoser went deeper into visualisation techniques and tools for communicating internal audit results, sharing case studies from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance. He also covered quality assurance, explaining how the Balanced Scorecard turns quality into measurable performance. The expert stressed: an annual self-assessment consolidates evidence and improvement actions, while a five-year peer review independently and pragmatically validates that self-assessment.

The training series aims to strengthen the capacity of the State Customs Service’s Internal Audit Department and support the rollout of new National Internal Audit Standards based on GIAS.

The next session, the seventh, will take place in Kyiv.