For the person who has to sign, a audit risk assessment is a list of things to check and a number of days to check them in, and the second is decided by the first long before anyone opens the list. For a business holding its systems to a control framework, the checks run over the controls, the tests, the vulnerabilities, the incidents and the access reviews; every item is a sample to take, minutes to spend and a chance of a gap that costs hours to close. The compliance officer who works those figures before the audit is scoped budgets the audit and its aftermath together; the one who does not learns the aftermath's cost from the invoice. This page walks what a audit risk assessment covers, how to size its days, its expected gaps and its all-in cost, and where the free sheets on this site do that sizing from the program's own numbers, with no account.
What an information technology audit covers
For a business holding its systems to a control framework: the controls, the tests, the vulnerabilities, the incidents and the access reviews. Each is a control with evidence behind it, and a checklist is the list of controls with a sample size and a minutes-per-sample figure attached whether or not anyone wrote them down. The audit scope sheet on this site takes systems, controls, samples and minutes and returns the samples, the hours, the days and the coverage the days available give, so the checklist has a size before it has a date.
Scoring audit risk, and why inherent and residual are separate columns
Inherent risk is how much would be at stake in an area if nothing were being done about it, and residual is what is left once the controls are taken into account. Keeping them in one column looks tidier and destroys the information, because a low residual score tells you nothing about whether the area deserves attention when a control fails. The audit plan is drawn from the inherent column and the testing effort from the residual one, which is how a well controlled but high stakes area still gets visited. Write both, and write the control you credited in between them.
Gaps, remediation and the all-in cost
An audit finds gaps at a rate the last audit already measured, and every gap costs remediation hours. The audit sheets on this site for HIPAA, GDPR and PCI, and the IT control-testing sheet for a framework, take the item count, the gap rate, the hours per gap and the hourly cost and return the gaps expected, the remediation hours and the cost with the aftermath in it. For IT compliance the sheet to start with is the IT control-testing sheet. None of them publishes a benchmark rate; each works the program's own.
Why the search is audit risk assessment
The words in audit risk assessment are the words a business holding its systems to a control framework uses when the obligation has a name and the program does not yet have a number. The name is the regulator's, linked below; the number is the program's own, and it is the count of obligations, controls and evidence items behind IT compliance turned into reviewer hours on the obligations register sheet and into audit days on the audit scope sheet. A program that searches audit risk assessment and comes away with those two figures has done the first day of the work, and the paid plan on this site keeps what follows: the record, with owners, dates and the attestation that closes each period.
What to do with the number
Take it to the budget conversation and to the consultant's proposal. A proposal whose audit days land far from the sheet's is sampling more or less than the program needs, and a budget that covers the assessment and not the remediation is half a budget. The guide this page supports covers the questions for a regulatory compliance consultant. Attestvio Pro keeps every audit with its findings and their remediation against the obligations it tested; the sheets stay free.
Questions people ask about audit risk assessment
How long does a audit risk assessment take?
Items times minutes over 60 for the hours, over the hours in an audit day for the days: the audit scope sheet on this site works it from your own systems, controls, samples and minutes with no account, and publishes no benchmark.
What does a audit risk assessment cost all in?
Assessment hours plus the expected gaps times the remediation hours per gap, times the hourly cost. The audit sheets on this site work it from your own gap rate; the worked examples run from $8,800 to $19,720 for the sizes entered.
Does Attestvio run the audit risk assessment?
No. Attestvio sizes it and keeps the findings and their remediation against the obligations; the audit itself is your assessor's or your own team's. The sheets are free either way.