ICS refers to the entire range of internal controlling mechanisms which contribute to the fulfilment of the following important tasks within an organisation:

• Achieving the company’s objectives
• Ensuring efficient and secure processes
• Preventing errors and irregularities (either deliberate or unintentional)
  

Larger corporations generally have an extensive ICS. Under Switzerland’s revised auditing law, the internal controlling system (ICS) of public enterprises and economically relevant companies* will in future be subject to an audit. In other words, greater emphasis is being placed on the importance of ICS as a key element of corporate governance and monitoring, as well as in the auditing process.

The legislation does not stipulate any particular system other than the general principle that ICS should be adapted in accordance with the specific characteristics of the company. The minimum requirement is that all processes that form part of the financial reporting should be documented and fully integrated.

Many medium-sized enterprises do not yet have an extensive ICS. For most of these companies, the introduction of a comprehensive framework (e.g. the internationally recognised COSO system) would be too time-consuming and expensive, or unreasonably complex. For this reason, BDO has developed the “ICS for SME” model.

This model offers the following advantages:

• Added benefits for the company (more efficient and secure financial processes, prevention of errors)
• Compliance with regulatory requirements
• Simplest possible structure in terms of implementation, documentation and maintenance

* An organisation is considered economically relevant if it exceeds at least two of the following values in two consecutive years: turnover of CHF 20 million, total assets of CHF 10 million or 50 full-time employees.

Contact person

Martin Nay

Leiter Produktbereich Wirtschaftsprüfung

Phone: ++41 44 444 37 04
E-Mail: martin.nay[at]bdo.ch