Risk and Control Registers Consulting

A risk and control register is a structured document that maps an organisation's key risks against the specific controls designed to mitigate them, along with information on control ownership, frequency, and testing status. It is the backbone of internal audit planning, ICFR and SOX-style testing, and board-level risk oversight, translating broad risk statements into concrete, testable control activities. Many Indian companies maintain risk registers and control matrices separately or in an ad hoc manner, which weakens their usefulness precisely when they are needed most, during an audit, a regulatory inspection, or a board review.

Why This Matters

Without a properly linked risk and control register, organisations often cannot demonstrate which controls actually address which risks, making it difficult to prioritise testing effort, respond to auditor queries, or identify where a risk remains inadequately covered. A fragmented or outdated register also slows down internal audit planning and increases the chance that a control gap goes unnoticed until an incident forces the issue into the open.

How We Help

Register Design and Structuring

We design a register structure suited to the organisation's size and complexity, mapping risks to processes, sub-processes, and the specific controls, whether preventive, detective, manual, or automated, that address each one. The structure is built to support both internal audit planning and, where applicable, ICFR testing requirements.

Control Identification and Rationalisation

We work with process owners to identify existing controls, remove duplicate or ineffective ones, and highlight risks that currently have no meaningful control coverage. This rationalisation exercise often reveals that organisations are over-controlling low-risk areas while under-controlling higher-risk ones.

Ongoing Maintenance and Testing Linkage

A register that is prepared once and never updated quickly loses relevance. We help build a periodic review cadence, typically aligned with the internal audit cycle, so that new risks, process changes, and control failures are reflected promptly, and testing results are recorded against each control entry.

Board and Audit Committee Reporting

We translate the detailed register into summarised dashboards that give the audit committee and board a clear view of control coverage, open gaps, and remediation progress, without requiring them to wade through the underlying working-level detail.

Who Needs This

• Companies preparing for or maintaining ICFR/IFC documentation under the Companies Act, 2013
• Organisations building or refreshing their internal audit universe
• Businesses that have grown through acquisition and inherited inconsistent control documentation
• Audit committees seeking a clearer, consolidated view of risk and control coverage

Our Approach

We build registers that are detailed enough to be useful for testing and audit purposes, but not so unwieldy that no one actually maintains them. Wherever possible, we align the register format with tools the organisation already uses, spreadsheets, GRC platforms, or audit management software, so that adoption is practical rather than aspirational.

Get in Touch

To discuss how we can support you with risk and control registers, write to us at info@agarwalurs.com.