The Nature, Impact and Facilitation of External Auditor Reliance on Internal Auditing (Survey‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The growth of internal auditing over the years has led to much consideration for relying on internal audit work by external auditors. This paper discusses issues relating to ways in which external auditors rely on internal audit work, the impact of such reliance on external audit fees, and facilitating reliance. The contributions of this paper are that it synthesizes and integrates three diverse literatures--professional audit standards, surveys from practice-oriented sources, and findings from academic research studies--and analyzes the issues by providing recommendations, including examples that serve as recommendations, for guidance to internal and external auditors.