CSA: The Evolvement And Development Of Internal Control Assessment System

In 2006, Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China promulgated a series of exposure drafts about internal control criterions. It indicates their recognition on criterions of internal control. The establishment and execution of internal control system are the important contents of corporate governance. The internal control assessments hold the balance of the internal control of an enterprise. The traditional assessments of internal control depends on the exterior and (or) internal auditor. And CSA can help to perfect the system of internal control assessment.CSA was developed by some internal auditors in Gulf Canada Resources Limited firstly. After development for nearly twenty years, it has become better and better. There are many organizations those are making use of it to find the weakness of internal control and the existing of important risks. In China, There are more and more companies which have developed CSA. So, the studying of CSA can provide instructions for the companies in deed.At present, the study on CSA is focused on two fields in China. Some researchers just translate the study results of CSA from the west country, and merely introduce west country's theory of CSA. While, others regard CSA as a method of perfecting enterprise management. The starting point of this paper is the weakness of the traditional internal control assessment method, while CSA remedies this weakness. This paper tries to discuss the function of CSA from the side that CSA perfects the system of internal control assessment. After introducing the origin and implement process of CSA in detail, this paper discusses the problems that Chinese companies should pay attention to when they use CSA.This paper has four chapters. The main idea in first chapter is the summarization of internal control, including the evolvement of concept of internal control; the internal control frameworks from America, England and Canada. The main idea of the second chapter is the review of the traditional assessment means of internal control in China, including the types, weaknesses and advantages of the traditional assessment of internal control. The third chapter is the emphasis of this paper, including the origin of CSA, the definition and speciality of CSA, the forms of CSA, and how to develop the CSA in organization etc. The main idea discussed in forth chapter is about the problem that we must pay attention to when we develop CSA in our organization.