The effect of internal audit arrangement on the audit report delay

In related researches and various laws and regulations, the investigation of factors affecting the timely release of financial reports has always been of interest. One of the factors that can play a significant role in this field and has received less attention is the way internal audit is arranged. Based on this, the aim of this study is to investigate the impact of internal audit arrangement on financial reporting lag. Internal audit aarangement refers to the outsourcing of internal audit to persons other than the audited company, and the financial report lag is defined as the time interval between the financial year and the date of the audit report. To test the hypotheses, the data of 100 firms admitted to the Tehran Stock Exchange during the period of 1396-1400 were collected and the regression model was used. The findings of the research showed that internal audit outsourcing has a negative effect on the audit report lag. This means that the greater the outsourcing of internal audit has the lower financial reporting lag. The findings of this research can help companies in reducing the financial reporting lag by using internal audit outsourcing.