PERCEPÇÃO DE AUDITORES E AUDITADOS SOBRE AS PRÁTICAS DE AUDITORIA INTERNA EM UMA EMPRESA PRESTADORA DE SERVIÇOS DE SANEAMENTO BÁSICO

Abstract

In a competitive business environment, the internal audit function has stood out in the improvement of the corporate governance system, contributing for the advancement of internal processes, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of management in organizations. The objective of this research is to describe the perception of auditors and auditees about the practices of internal auditing in a company providing basic sanitation services. The study is characterized by a qualitative, descriptive approach, through a case study, with documentary analysis. The data were collected using a questionnaire designed for the purposes of this study and different aspects of the internal audit function were addressed, including the training of auditors and the quality of audit recommendations. The same was applied to 11 auditors and 47 audited employees, through Google Forms website, in order to identify alignments between auditors and auditees, with regard to internal audit practices; identify characteristics of the internal audit activity that auditors and auditees associate with the quality of the audit service; to raise quality attributes present in the internal audit and in the individual characteristics of the surveyed company's internal auditors; to analyze the relations between the perception of internal audit quality of the respondents to the questionnaires and the quality attributes mentioned in the literature and identified in the document analysis, understanding the reasons for the relations found. The auditees related to the quality of the audit service, the auditor's preparation, risk orientation and the quality of the audit recommendations, which corroborates with the literature. There is an opportunity for improvement in: qualifying internal auditors, increasing efficiency through technology and training a specific team focused on auditing the main activity.