BS Internal Auditing is one of three accounting-family degrees CHED standardised on the same day in 2017. It is 167 units, it shares 81 units of accounting with BS Accountancy, and it leads to no Philippine licensure examination. What it points at instead is a global designation earned after you already have the job.
The order behind it
The standard is CHED Memorandum Order No. 29, series of 2017, "Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Internal Auditing (BSIA)," adopted under Republic Act No. 7722 by virtue of Commission en banc Resolution No. 231-2017 dated 28 March 2017, and framed by the outcomes-based approach of CMO No. 46, s. 2012.
It was issued alongside CMO No. 27 (accountancy) and CMO No. 28 (management accounting), and the three orders are deliberately built on a common spine. General education follows CMO No. 20, s. 2013 - the post-K-to-12 curriculum - so the unit totals below describe a programme you can actually enrol in today, not a pre-2016 leftover.
Like its siblings, CMO No. 29 states that the curriculum is vertically aligned with the Accounting and Business Management strand of senior high school.
The 167 units
| Component | Minimum units |
|---|---|
| General education courses | 36 |
| National Service Training Program | 6 |
| Physical education | 8 |
| Common business and management education courses | 6 |
| Core accounting education courses | 81 |
| Cognates / major / professional courses | 30 |
| Total | 167 |
The order describes the curriculum as designed to help students "develop the appropriate entry-level technical competence, professional skills, values, ethics and attitudes to successfully complete their studies, pass their professional certification assessment/examination and the practical experience period," covering accounting and finance knowledge, organisational and business knowledge, and information technology competencies.
The accounting spine you share with accountancy students
The 81-unit core accounting block is the same list that appears in the accountancy and management accounting orders, with the internal-auditing versions of two requirements: Internal Auditing Internship at 6 units and Internal Auditing Research at 3 units.
The rest of the block is straight accounting and business law: Law on Obligations and Contracts, Business Laws and Regulations, Regulatory Framework and Legal Issues in Business, Management Science, International Business and Trade, Accounting Research Methods, Statistical Analysis with Software Application, Governance, Business Ethics, Risk Management and Internal Control, Managerial Economics, Economic Development, Financial Accounting and Reporting, Conceptual Framework and Accounting Standards, Intermediate Accounting 1 to 3, Financial Markets, Financial Management, Accounting Information System, IT Application Tools in Business, Cost Accounting and Control, Strategic Cost Management, Strategic Business Analysis, Business Tax and Income Taxation.
The common business and management block is two courses: Operations Management and TQM, and Strategic Management.
Practical consequence: for the first two to three years, a BSIA student sits in largely the same rooms as the accountancy students. That is what makes shifting between the three degrees feasible, subject to each school's own retention and shifting rules.
What makes it internal auditing
The 30-unit professional block is the distinctive part, and it reads like the syllabus of an audit department:
- Forensic Accounting
- Enterprise Risk Management
- Sustainability and Strategic Audit
- Internal Audit and Entity's Control
- Internal Audit Engagements
- Advanced Internal Auditing: External Quality
- Operations Auditing
- Fraud Examination: Concepts and Cases
- 6 units of professional electives, drawn from a list that includes internal auditing principles, project management and auditing in a CIS environment
CMO No. 29 says these courses complete the technical competencies "required under IFAC's latest International Education Standards that qualifies the graduate to take any global certification assessment in Internal Auditing."
The order also marks the professional and several accounting courses as requiring qualified faculty under its Section 15. Ask a school who actually teaches Fraud Examination and Internal Audit Engagements - practitioners or a general business lecturer. In a degree with no board exam to benchmark, faculty background is the closest thing to a quality signal.
One more detail worth noticing in the order's list of allied fields: it names forensic accounting and risk management among the fields internal auditing is closest to. That is a fair description of where the work actually goes.
No licence, and the one you cannot take
The PRC lists 46 professional regulatory boards. Internal auditing is not among them, so nobody licenses internal auditors in the Philippines and nobody may prevent you from practising.
The exam you cannot take is the CPA's. Republic Act No. 9298 restricts admission to the CPA licensure examination to holders of the degree of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy. If public practice, external audit or a CPA-required government post is your aim, take BS Accountancy and plan for the CPA licensure examination instead. Choosing BSIA and hoping to sit CPALE later means taking the accountancy degree afterwards.
The credential the degree points at
The target designation is the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), issued by the Institute of Internal Auditors. The IIA sets pathways by education: a bachelor's degree with two years of internal audit experience, or a master's degree or higher with one year. The examination has three parts - 125 questions in 150 minutes for Part 1, and 100 questions in 120 minutes each for Parts 2 and 3 - and candidates have three years from acceptance into the programme to complete the eligibility requirements.
Read the experience requirement carefully, because it defines the timeline. You can sit examination parts before you have finished the experience, but the designation itself waits on the work. Far Eastern University, which offers the degree, puts it plainly on its own programme page: BSIA graduates "are qualified to take certification assessments from the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA)."
Other certifications used in the field include the Certified Fraud Examiner for fraud work and the information-systems audit credentials for IT audit. Each has its own experience rules and fees set by its issuing body; check those directly rather than relying on summaries.
Where graduates work
CMO No. 29 lists positions by level, and the list is a fair map of the sector.
Entry level: state accounting examiner, treasury agent, revenue officer, bank examiner, budget officer and financial services specialist in government; the internal audit and assurance intake of companies and external service providers; junior instructor in education.
Middle level: senior internal auditor, senior information systems auditor, senior compliance officer, senior budget officer, senior internal audit manager, managing or lead consultant, and the state auditor and audit services manager grades in government.
Advanced: chief audit executive, chief risk officer, chief compliance officer, principal or partner of advisory services, and senior government finance positions.
Far Eastern University's own list of career paths for the degree runs along the same lines - junior and senior internal auditor, internal audit supervisor or manager, operations auditor, IT auditor, fraud examiner, forensic auditor, compliance auditor and chief audit executive - across manufacturing, banking, insurance, healthcare and e-commerce.
Two realities the brochures leave out. First, internal audit is a function that large organisations have and small ones do not, so the job market is concentrated in banks, listed companies, business process outsourcing firms, government agencies and the advisory arms of professional services firms. Second, "chief audit executive" appears on these lists because the CMO is describing a whole career, not a first job.
For the pay side, our guide to accountant and CPA salaries uses published survey data; treat any specific internal-audit figure without a named source behind it as guesswork.
Choosing between the three 2017 degrees
| BS Accountancy | BS Management Accounting | BS Internal Auditing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHED order | CMO 27, s. 2017 | CMO 28, s. 2017 | CMO 29, s. 2017 |
| Minimum units | 173 | 167 | 167 |
| Core accounting units | 81 | 81 | 81 |
| Professional block | 36 | 30 | 30 |
| PRC licence | CPA licensure exam | None | None |
| Target credential | CPA | CMA and similar | CIA |
Take BSIA if risk, controls and investigation genuinely interest you and you want to be in an audit function rather than in public practice. Take BS Management Accounting if planning, costing and performance inside a company is the draw. Take BS Accountancy if the licence is the point - and if you are still in senior high school, our note on the ABM strand and accountancy covers the preparation side.
Whichever you pick, ask the school one question before enrolling: how many of last year's graduates were hired into audit or accounting roles, and where. A degree with no board exam has no public passing rate to hide behind, which cuts both ways.
Sources
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 29, s. 2017 — Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Internal Auditing (BSIA)
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 27, s. 2017 — Revised Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Accountancy (BSA)
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 28, s. 2017 — Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Management Accounting (BSMA)
- Republic Act No. 9298 — Philippine Accountancy Act of 2004 (LawPhil)
- Professional Regulation Commission — Professional Regulatory Boards
- The Institute of Internal Auditors — Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) certification
- Far Eastern University — Bachelor of Science in Internal Auditing
