Enterprise internal control has been paid more and more attention by countries and enterprises all over the world. In China, with the successful implementation of Supporting Guidelines for Enterprise Internal Control jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the National Audit Office, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, the standard system of enterprise internal control is gradually improving. The construction of internal control system is of great significance for listed companies to improve their governance structure, guard against risks and enhance their value. Strengthening the construction of internal control system is an important measure to comprehensively improve the management level of listed companies and unlisted large and medium-sized enterprises, and it is also an important institutional arrangement for China to deal with the international financial crisis. The internal control standard is a systematic project. We should improve our understanding of the internal control system, promote the implementation process of the internal control standard, establish and improve the internal control responsibility institution, and combine the requirements of the internal control standard with the current management requirements of the company to improve the efficiency of the internal control system.

Keywords enterprise; internal control

I. On Internal Control

Internal control refers to the methods, procedures and measures that a unit organizes, restricts, checks and adjusts the business activities among functional departments under the premise of division of responsibilities to ensure the realization of business management objectives, so as to clarify the responsibilities and authorities of various functional departments within the unit and form a complete and strict control system that is interrelated, coordinated and restricted. Internal control permeates all aspects of enterprise management activities. It can also be said that as long as enterprises have economic activities and management, they need corresponding internal control activities. In addition, internal control activities also appear at all levels and functional departments within the enterprise. It includes not only the various ways and means of business activities such as purchasing, sales and production authorized and directed by the enterprise management authorities, but also the procedures and steps of accounting, auditing and analyzing various information and reports, as well as various rules and regulations formulated for comprehensively planning, controlling and evaluating enterprise economic activities. As the most important economic organization in modern society, enterprises cannot do without internal control. Without a perfect and scientific internal control system, their economic activities will not achieve the expected results. Moreover, in recent years, with the acceleration of economic globalization, enterprises are facing various risks in the face of changes in domestic and international economic environment and competition in domestic and international markets. Enterprises are paying more and more attention to the risks brought about by environmental changes, and it is increasingly urgent to strengthen internal control and risk management. Enterprises should proceed from reality, strengthen internal supervision and governance, establish an effective supervision and evaluation mechanism for business activities and management activities, form a sound, complete and flexible control network system, and promote enterprises to carry out business activities better.

Second, the need to strengthen internal control of enterprises

If an enterprise does not have internal control standards and related internal control systems, all controls exist in sporadic independent activities of managers, and it is impossible to conduct internal management according to the internal control standards of the system. A large number of practices have proved that strong control, weak out of control, chaos without control, and internal control has become an important symbol to measure modern enterprise management. Constructing a complete and scientific internal control system is not only the objective requirement of enterprise organization and management, but also the fundamental guarantee for the smooth production and operation of enterprises and the important guarantee for becoming the main body of market competition. With the continuous development of China's socialist market economy and the deepening of enterprise reform, the market competition of Chinese enterprises is becoming more and more fierce, and the internal control system of enterprises is also changing. In order to reduce decision-making mistakes, improve market competitiveness and avoid problems encountered in development as much as possible, enterprises should strengthen internal control management. Specifically, the necessity of strengthening enterprise internal control is reflected in the following aspects: First, building an enterprise internal control system can promote the scientific and reasonable decision-making of enterprises, improve the economic benefits of enterprises, clarify the working objectives of various departments, stimulate the enthusiasm of employees in various departments, coordinate the economic activities of various departments, and make enterprises maintain and increase their value. Second, the need to curb corruption, weak internal control is an important factor in corporate leadership corruption, which has been confirmed by the corruption incidents that have been discovered so far. The rights of enterprises are too concentrated. Poor internal control of enterprises will provide opportunities for illegal activities such as corruption and misappropriation of unit assets. Some unit leaders instigate, instruct and even force employees to handle some illegal matters for economic benefits, which harms the interests of the unit. The third is to ensure the authenticity and integrity of business information and financial accounting data. Managers of state-owned enterprises pay attention to accounting information mainly based on personal interests and their influence on their performance and reputation. If the internal control of the enterprise is not strict, the accounting information provided by the enterprise manager to the enterprise owner may be distorted. At the same time, because the interests of business operators and creditors are inconsistent, the accounting information obtained by creditors may be false. Fourth, the need to improve economic efficiency. In recent years, state-owned enterprises have achieved remarkable results in extricating themselves from difficulties through reform, reorganization, merger, asset reorganization and strengthening management. But this is only a phased achievement, the overall profitability of state-owned enterprises is still not strong, the profit growth of most small and medium-sized state-owned enterprises is not obvious, and some leaders of state-owned enterprises still do not attach importance to strengthening internal control of enterprises, which seriously affects the improvement of economic benefits of enterprises.

Third, several ways to strengthen internal control

1. Attach great importance to and effectively promote the implementation of internal standards. As the main body of enterprises and the executors of various policies, people should first fundamentally improve their understanding of internal control. Only when the awareness of personnel at all levels of the enterprise is improved can all business departments and personnel of the enterprise truly implement the various systems of the enterprise. Only by raising awareness can they enhance their awareness and the internal control system of enterprises be truly put in place.

2. Establish and improve the enterprise internal control system. For many private small and medium-sized enterprises and enterprises with serious insider control, there may be no internal control system at all, because most of them are unfamiliar with accounting and do not pay much attention to it. They pay more attention to business, and the role of accountant is replaced by the boss. Some enterprises have internal control, but the internal control system is not comprehensive enough to cover all departments and personnel, and it has not penetrated into all business fields and business links of the enterprise. Facing these problems, we should start from two aspects: first, we should establish an internal control system; Second, we must improve the internal control system to ensure full implementation. System is the key to ensure the legalization of process control, and process control is the inherent law of enterprises. Only by establishing an effective system and clarifying the control contents and key points of each link in the control process can the internal control system be truly implemented. Building a strict internal control system of enterprises should include three relatively independent control levels: first, integrate the system of mutual containment and restriction into the whole process of supply, production and sales of enterprises, and establish a monitoring defense line with "prevention" as the mainstay; Secondly, establish post supervision, that is, on the basis of routine accounting by the accounting department, conduct daily and regular inspections on its posts and businesses, and establish a monitoring defense line based on "blocking"; Finally, it is a set of supporting performance appraisal system, which clarifies the responsibilities of each position.

3. Optimize the internal control environment. With the attention of leaders and a sound internal control system, a good internal control environment is needed. The internal control of enterprises is bound to be influenced by many factors, such as organizational structure, employees' ability and loyalty, decentralization and responsibility expression, budget and financial report, organizational checks and balances, and so on. Control environment is the sum of various factors that have an important influence on the selection and effectiveness of control procedures and control technologies, including external environment and internal environment. We usually talk about the internal environment. To optimize the internal control environment, we can start from the following aspects: ① To establish advanced management ideas, enterprise management must establish modern management ideas, consciously form risk management concepts, and ensure that all employees of the enterprise are clear about their responsibilities for internal control through effective information transmission mechanisms. ② It is necessary to cultivate a corporate culture that abides by the system. Modern society is a society ruled by law, and modern enterprises should also become enterprises ruled by law. No matter the chairman, general manager or the most basic employees of an enterprise, they should strictly abide by the rules and regulations of the enterprise, test the right or wrong and effect of management with the system as the standard, and play its role of protection, supervision and checks and balances. (3) Optimize the organizational structure. When designing the organizational structure of an enterprise, it is necessary to clarify the responsibilities and interests of each department, prevent overlapping of powers and avoid a power vacuum, so that every link of business processing has corresponding institutions and specific personnel. ④ Form an atmosphere of being diligent and good at learning within the enterprise, strive to build a learning enterprise, abandon some personal empiricism, learn good systems and methods in management from advanced peers with a modest attitude, be good at learning the knowledge and methods of modern enterprise management from books, and summarize and formulate internal control systems suitable for their own management and development with keen observation and thinking.

4. Strengthen the supervisory role of internal audit. The audit content of enterprise internal control mainly includes five elements: internal environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and internal supervision. It is necessary to review and evaluate the overall situation of the enterprise control environment to ensure the rational allocation of enterprise assets and funds; Review and evaluate the enterprise risk management mechanism and its operation to ensure that enterprises can effectively prevent financial risks; Review and evaluate the implementation of control activities in various production and business operations of enterprises to ensure that enterprise funds are in place; Review and evaluate the information processing of enterprises in establishing information systems, obtaining and transmitting information; Review and evaluate the status of internal supervision subject, the establishment of internal supervision mechanism and the implementation of internal supervision activities to ensure the implementation of enterprise financial control.

5. Enrich the internal control talent pool and improve the working level of personnel. Due to the publication of the Basic Standards for Internal Control of Enterprises and its supporting guidelines, most municipal enterprises in China have a strong demand for strengthening internal control, and the number of employees involved has also increased significantly. However, at present, there is a serious shortage of internal control professionals in China. Enterprise management should be people-oriented, and human resource management is a management activity to realize enterprise goals and rationally allocate and develop human resources. In the information environment, an important aspect of strengthening enterprise internal control is to strengthen human resource management. For internal control, the goal of human resource management is mainly to ensure and improve the quality and conduct of employees. The information environment puts forward higher requirements for the quality of employees, not only to be familiar with business, but also to master the operation of software systems. We can establish a staff training mechanism, and enterprises can establish a practical staff training mechanism in combination with the actual situation, so that employees can have a greater sense of responsibility, clarify the importance of work, develop good work habits, and gradually improve their ideological quality and professional quality. In addition, enterprises should also restrain employees' behavior through a sound internal control system and establish a good performance appraisal and incentive mechanism to prevent the brain drain of important information resources and the corresponding information resources.

References:

Sun Na. How to understand internal control [J]. Accounting Learning, No.9, 2006.

[2] Yu Haijie. How to strengthen enterprise internal control management [J]. Manager, No.20119.