Internal Control over Financial Reporting (ICFR) remains an essential part of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) agenda in order to ensure that the information reported in the financial statements is accurate and does not contain any material misstatement.
The internal control and financial reporting disciplines have evolved significantly over the past two decades due to various international business incidents such as the global financial crisis and oil price volatility. This has resulted in major regulatory reforms that aim for governing the internal control environment, especially focused towards financial reporting. Many international and regional regulators have since implemented various laws, regulations and guidelines in relation to ICFR.
In the Middle East several regulators, including UAE Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), UAE Insurance Authority, Abu Dhabi Accountability Authority (ADAA) - UAE and Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QMFA), have taken initiatives to further strengthen the internal control environment. Many other regulators in the region are currently exploring such initiatives to better manage and regulate financial reporting.
PwC has developed FOCUSED to support your organisation's ICFR journey. FOCUSED is our tailored ICFR-centric approach which addresses all of the key pain points for organisations of any size to create a robust and value-adding ICFR process.
How can we help?
The success of an ICFR exercise highly depends on the way it is planned, executed and monitored. Even an ICFR exercise complying with all requirements may not be able to highlight key control design or operating failures if a correct approach is not used.
Therefore, based on the leading practices in the regulated economies along with the specific business needs of the region, PwC has developed our ICFR-centric approach FOCUSED. FOCUSED addresses all of the key pain points for organisations of any size and supports them in the ICFR maturity journey.
Framework development
Operations assessment
Control design review
Upgrading internal practices
Sampling techniques
Effectiveness testing
Documentation and representation
