Weekly control exceptions
- To investigate: 0 controls, 0 exceptions.
- Expected, with a reason: 0.
Global Compliance · Expanded Global Compliance
Continuous Control Monitoring
Evaluate whether each control is operating: evidence present and current, expirations, exceptions and failures, so assurance is ongoing instead of a one-time checklist.
Demonstration: Marlowe Textiles Ltd (fictional) · Manufacturing and export. Fictional data and a scripted answer.
The situation
- Organisation
- Marlowe Textiles Ltd (fictional)
- Who is asking
- Internal controls manager
- Industry
- Manufacturing and export
- What happened
- Controls are tested once a year; the manager wants weekly signals when one drifts.
The question asked
Which automated control tests failed this week, and which need a person to look?
What it reads, and who can see the result
- Control test feed feedResults of automated tests on key controls.
- Reads
- The pass/fail results and counts of exceptions for each automated test.
- Does not read
- The underlying transactions.
- Permission
- Controls team's read access to the test feed.
- Who sees it
- The internal controls manager and the finance director.
Try it
Review each flagged record: confirm it or dismiss it. The totals and the answer below follow your decisions.
| Control | Automated test | Run | Exceptions this week | Finding | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duplicate supplier payments | Same supplier, amount and date | Daily | 0 | Matched | None needed |
| Manual journal approval | Journals over limit have two approvers | Daily | 3 | Three journals posted with one approver | |
| Vendor master changes | Bank change followed by callback | Daily | 2 | Two bank changes with no callback | |
| User access | Leavers disabled within 2 days | Weekly | 0 | Matched | None needed |
| Month-end cut-off | Accruals match receipts | Monthly | 27 | 27 exceptions: a system migration week | |
| Goods receipt matching | Three-way match | Daily | 11 | 11 mismatches, double the weekly average |
- Flagged
- 4 of 6 · 43
- Investigate
- 0 · 0
- Expected
- 0 · 0
- Undecided
- 4 · 43
The answer
Simulated answer. Written for this fictional case, not produced by a live model. Only the figures in it are computed, from what you decided above.
4 of 6 controls raised exceptions this week, 43 in all.
Two weaknesses are the ones fraud controls exist to catch: journals approved by one person and bank changes with no callback [S1]. The month-end exceptions coincide with a system migration, which may explain them but should be confirmed, not assumed [S2].
You have marked 0 to investigate (0 exceptions) and 0 as expected (0); 4 are undecided.
Relies on: S1 · Control test results, week 43S2 · Control definitions
Review and approval
The internal controls manager decides. Approving opens an issue for each control marked to investigate and records the reason for the rest. It does not reverse any transaction.
Not ready to approve. 4 flagged controls are still undecided. Confirm or dismiss each one first.
In the product this is a different person with the right permission. Here you play that role to see the rule.
What it produces
Limits of this example
- Automated tests find what they are written to find.
- A quiet week is not proof a control works.
- This is a scripted demonstration on fictional data. No model was called and no real organisation, person or result is shown.
More in Global Compliance
- The compliance command centreObligations, deadlines and changes are scattered across inboxes and spreadsheets, so something is eventually missed.
- Corporate and financial regulationFilings, tax obligations, licences and entity records are tracked by different people, often on different dates.
- People, sector and international dutiesEmployment, privacy, security, environmental and cross-border duties sit with different teams and are rarely seen together.
- Assurance and evidenceWhen an auditor or an inspector arrives, evidence has to be found in a hurry, and gaps appear for the first time.
- Regulatory Applicability IntelligenceWork out which obligations may apply to this business from its legal entities, activities, industry, locations, workforce and other verified facts, and show each as appl…
- Regulatory Change Impact IntelligenceWatch approved authoritative sources, detect changes that matter, identify the entities, processes, systems and controls they affect, and start a governed review and rem…
- Contract Compliance IntelligenceRead customer-authorised contracts for obligations, service commitments, deadlines, renewals, restrictions, responsibilities and compliance risks, with citations to the…
- Audit Readiness and Evidence CompletenessConnect each obligation to its controls, evidence, owner and effectiveness, show which artifacts are missing, and produce an evidence-backed preparation and gap report.
The Global Compliance story · This capability in the full register