Future Priorities for Internal Controls

Internal controls help organizations to safeguard their assets, ensure reliable and accurate financial reporting, prevent against fraud, and assure compliance with internal corporate policies and external laws and regulations. Unfortunately, organizations do not have unlimited time and resources to devote to internal controls—they have to prioritize the most urgent risks, threats, and opportunities.

As part of its New Developments in Internal Controls survey, APQC asked respondents to identify their organizations’ top priorities for internal controls in the coming year. In this article, we examine the top three priorities—cybersecurity, automation, and business process ownership—to show their importance within the sphere of internal controls and why organizations are right to prioritize these areas.