Jun 8, 2021
•1 minute read
SAP Audit Management
SAP Audit Management focuses on how SAP customers plan, execute, document, and monitor internal and external audits across complex enterprise environments. The topic covers audit planning, risk evaluation, evidence collection, issue tracking, audit reporting, and integration with SAP governance, risk, and compliance processes. It is relevant for internal audit teams, compliance leaders, finance controllers, IT risk owners, and SAP security stakeholders. In SAP environments, audit management helps organizations move away from manual documentation and toward more consistent, automated, and defensible audit workflows that support compliance, operational resilience, and executive oversight.
What is SAP Audit Management?
SAP Audit Management is the practice of using SAP capabilities and connected GRC processes to manage the audit lifecycle from planning through reporting and remediation. It helps organizations define audit scope, assess risks, assign audit work, collect documentation, track findings, and monitor corrective actions. In practical terms, SAP Audit Management gives internal audit, compliance, finance, and IT teams a structured way to prove that business processes, controls, and system activities are being reviewed and governed. It is especially important where SAP systems support regulated finance, supply chain, procurement, HR, and data privacy processes.
SAP Audit Management focuses on how SAP customers plan, execute, document, and monitor internal and external audits across complex enterprise environments. The topic covers audit planning, risk evaluation, evidence collection, issue tracking, audit reporting, and integration with SAP governance, risk, and compliance processes. It is relevant for internal audit teams, compliance leaders, finance controllers, IT risk owners, and SAP security stakeholders. In SAP environments, audit management helps organizations move away from manual documentation and toward more consistent, automated, and defensible audit workflows that support compliance, operational resilience, and executive oversight.
What is SAP Audit Management?
SAP Audit Management is the practice of using SAP capabilities and connected GRC processes to manage the audit lifecycle from planning through reporting and remediation. It helps organizations define audit scope, assess risks, assign audit work, collect documentation, track findings, and monitor corrective actions. In practical terms, SAP Audit Management gives internal audit, compliance, finance, and IT teams a structured way to prove that business processes, controls, and system activities are being reviewed and governed. It is especially important where SAP systems support regulated finance, supply chain, procurement, HR, and data privacy processes.
How do enterprises use SAP Audit Management?
Internal Audit Planning
Enterprises use SAP Audit Management to prioritize audits based on business risk, regulatory requirements, and control exposure. Internal audit teams can structure annual audit plans around SAP processes such as finance, procurement, access management, and data privacy.
Control Testing and Evidence Collection
Audit teams use SAP Audit Management to collect evidence, document control testing, and maintain audit trails. This reduces reliance on spreadsheets and email while helping auditors prove that controls were reviewed consistently across SAP and non-SAP environments.
Issue Tracking and Remediation
Organizations use audit management workflows to record findings, assign owners, monitor remediation, and escalate overdue actions. This helps compliance, finance, IT, and business process teams close gaps before they become repeat audit findings or regulatory risks.
SAP GRC and Access Risk Reviews
Enterprises connect audit management with SAP GRC activities such as segregation of duties analysis, access certification, and privileged access review. This gives audit teams better visibility into who can access sensitive SAP transactions and whether controls are working.
Audit-Ready Finance and AI Workflows
As SAP finance teams adopt automation and AI, audit management helps capture approvals, exception handling, data lineage, and change logs. This is becoming important for SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business AI, record-to-report, AP automation, and close orchestration.
Where does SAP Audit Management emerge in SAPinsider research?
State of the Market GRC in SAP Environments shows audit management emerging within broader GRC modernization. The report finds that 60% of organizations are automating GRC processes, while 53% are centralizing control workflows to improve efficiency and visibility.
The Automating and Integrating GRC Processes report highlights the role of automation in meeting compliance and audit requirements. In the report, 65% of respondents focus on end-to-end automated processes, underscoring why audit teams need integrated workflows and documentation.
Moving to SAP S/4HANA? Avoid these common audit issuesAlthough transformative to businesses, SAP S/4HANA implementations have revealed some common, audit-relevant issues that could create risks for organizations. Because much of the focus of these implementations (and upgrades) is on ensuring that business functionality is enabled and the system goes live quickly, controls and security considerations are often neglected, or severely under-scoped. Implementation issues, from lack of requirements traceability to poor assumptions about implementer responsibilities, can easily be avoided with knowledge and planning. Join RSM partners Steve Biskie and Kari Sklenka-Gorden - each of whom have been involved in more than a dozen SAP S/4HANA projects - for some real-world tips and tricks on avoiding the worst and preparing for the best.
Attend this session to:
- Learn the risk themes that seem consistent across organizations and implementation partners
- Understand proven strategies for identifying and mitigating these risks
- Build a case for creating proper enterprise-wide data governance
- Hear how functional testing can fail to confirm controls are working, and when an organization might want to re-think existing control settings
- Learn how to document control decisions for auditability
Effective Internal Auditing in the Digitalized Era: Adding value to the businessWe see a strong push towards organizations adopting cloud-based software while still having on-prem operations, automation of as many processes as possible, use of many types of artificial intelligence, and ongoing decentralized and home working. What needs to be audited, and how it is audited, is changing. In this session you will:
- Obtain a view about the future and pressures for the internal audit function in the new digitalized era
- See how some SAP customers’ internal audit function are innovating their approach and actively assisting their businesses
- Discover how you can provide more visibility and demonstrate the vital value of your internal audit function
Jun 7, 2021
•1 minute read
Effective Internal Auditing in the Digitalized Era: Adding value to the businessWe see a strong push towards organizations adopting cloud-based software while still having on-prem operations, automation of as many processes as possible, use of many types of artificial intelligence, and ongoing decentralized and home working. What needs to be audited, and how it is audited, is changing. In this session you will:
- Obtain a view about the future and pressures for the internal audit function in the new digitalized era
- See how some SAP customers’ internal audit function are innovating their approach and actively assisting their businesses
- Discover how you can provide more visibility and demonstrate the vital value of your internal audit function
Jun 7, 2021
•1 minute read
Video: Delivery Hero’s Auditing Success Depends on Innovation and a Risk-Based ApproachDelivery Hero’s vision is to always deliver an amazing experience fast, easy, and to your door. This may not seem unusual for an order and delivery service organization, but with over 1 billion orders per year, and continued growth and expansion, it appears the company is delivering on its ambitious vision.
Berlin-based, Delivery Hero is present in over 50 countries across four continents, and operations include hundreds of entities. Given the diversity of markets and regulatory requirements with many potential localized risks to track, having strong assurance is essential to their success.
Learn how Delivery Hero’s Internal Audit team, created in 2017 and continuously expanding, has gone from scratch to impact. How are they doing more with less, leveraging resources for greater productivity, insights, and value?
May 21, 2021
•1 minute read
Case Study | How Delivery Hero’s better audit management helped improve the customer experienceOn the face, internal audit processes are rather elementary. Planning, fieldwork, reporting, and follow-up very familiar to us and we are used to performing tasks within these sub-processes in all of our audits. However, how do we leverage technology perform our internal audit tasks in a more effective and efficient manner? The devil is certain in the details. In this presentation, we will tell the story of how we established our internal audit function and also how we are levering SAP products to add value to our organization.
Attend this session to learn how to:
- Create a vision for your digitized future
- Establish and build your internal audit function from scratch
- Focus your internal audit innovation projects on what matters
May 12, 2021
•1 minute read
Bridging the Cybersecurity Gap in IT General Controls (ITGC)Compliance with regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) often require a set of controls in place to mitigate risks to the integrity of financial reporting. Current ITGC testing performed by internal and external auditors is only focused on one slice of access risk. Different entry points into SAP systems are overlooked and present a higher level of risks that are currently not even assessed. How would you and your organization respond if presented with a scenario where you could 'ace' your ITGC audit and still be completely exposed? In this session participants will:
- Be provided a snapshot of the current ITGC testing approaches commonly applied by auditors
- Learn the shortcomings of these approaches
- Understand the threats that exist to your SAP beyond the current ITGC scope and how they relate to compliance (specifically Sarbanes-Oxley)
- See how you can mitigate these risks BEFORE your internal and external audit
Jan 25, 2021
•1 minute read
Case Study: Innovation in Audit Management – Enabling True Alignment Between Risk & Audit at EquinorDriven by the need to effectively translate company strategy, ambitions, and risks into actions and results; Equinor, a multinational energy company with operations in more than thirty countries, is utilizing an integrated performance management and risk solution powered by SAP UI5, SAP BW on HANA, SAP BusinessObjects Lumira, and SAP Analytics Cloud. Taking it one significant step further, Equinor is now integrating Audit Management into its unique solution – to create an unprecedented combination of capabilities that will enable fit-for-purpose planning, execution and follow-up of audits in the context of enterprise risk management and strategy. Hear about Equinor’s strategy for replacing its legacy SAP Audit Management solution, with special focus on the process and principles, the delivery model, architecture, and user engagement. Attend this interactive session to:
- See how Equinor partnered with SAP Innovative Business Solutions, using an iterative design-thinking approach to revamp and digitalise its performance framework, leveraging custom SAP UI5 to exponentially increase the value of existing investments and innovate in user experience
- Step through a live demo of planning, execution and follow-up of audits and related findings and actions in a large enterprise context
- Find out how the new solution will be a key enabler for unlocking new insight and ensure timely execution and follow-up of the audit program
Jan 20, 2021
•1 minute read
CIO’s Perspective: BekaertDeslee Created A Smart Change Management Solution to Achieve Audit ComfortChange is a fact of life for many organizations, but constant change to SAP systems also carry both risk and discomfort for auditors. In this executive keynote by Rik Holvoert, CIO of the world leading manufacturer of mattress textiles, BekaertDeslee, attendees will learn how this medium-sized but globally operating company, manages compliance and provides auditing comfort despite constant changes in its SAP Systems landscape. Learn how Rik – together with his leadership team and BekaertDeslee’s auditing company, PwC - created very efficient solutions to bridging the gap between the need for compliance, smooth auditing processes, and managing changes within the globally distributed SAP systems landscape of BekaertDeslee.
Jan 20, 2021
•1 minute read
Expert Q&A: Modernize your SAP Audit StrategyCompliance is always a moving target as emerging regulations and business conditions warrant new approaches to protecting your organization. Join SAP expert Steve Biskie as he answers key questions on what the different type of audits you need to prepare and how to pass them with flying colors. Understand what documentation you need to prepare and how to leverage SAP to support your audit preparation.
Jan 20, 2021
•1 minute read
Surviving an SAP Audit — How to Keep the Auditors out of your HairThis session will provide tips and practical advice that will enable you to not only survive an SAP audit but do so in a way that keeps your sanity and a smile on your face. You’ll learn about the different types of audits and how these might impact auditor expectations and you will come away with tips and tricks from a career auditor on how to work successfully with your auditor during the review. Join this session to:
Learn why one successful audit doesn't equate to a passing grade on the next one
- Get advice for what to do during an audit, including answer questions honestly, listen for and document risk concerns, respond with facts and alternatives, and describe both normal and exception processes
- Hear what not to do during an audit, including blaming a lack of resources, shading the truth, speculating on answers, or even falsifying evidence
- See examples of documentation and FAQs you can prepare in advance to reduce the time the audit will take
Jan 20, 2021
•1 minute read
Featured Insiders
Events
SAPinsider Summit New Orleans 2026New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
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Mastering SAP Collaborate, an SAP TechEd on Tour eventSydney, New South Wales, Australia
