The Compendium illustrates through approaches and examples how the principles apply to external financial reporting objectives. Each chapter focuses on one of the five components of internal control and contains:

Each principle is accompanied by a list of approaches. The approaches illustrate how organizations apply the principles in designing, implementing, or conducting certain aspects of internal control over external financial reporting. Approaches apply to any size or type of entity and illustrate important characteristics of each principle. The points of focus attached to each principle will assist users in understanding the linkages between the sample activities and these important characteristics of principles. Organizations will apply these approaches as appropriate depending on individual facts and circumstances, and application is likely to evolve as circumstances change over time. Note that the approaches included in the Compendium are not intended to be a comprehensive or authoritative list.

For each approach, one or more examples are provided to illustrate how an important aspect has been put in place by entities that prepare financial statements for external purposes. The examples are based on actual experiences of entities, although some details have been modified for the purposes of this publication (e.g., entity and personal names are fictional and should not be attributed to any specific entity). The examples are not intended to be construed as "best practices" or suggested solutions for users of the Framework. Further, the examples are not necessarily sufficient to demonstrate that a particular principle is present and functioning as defined in the Framework.

These approaches and examples are likely to be relevant to many types of entities (whether public, private, not-for-profit, or governmental) that aim to prepare financial statements for external purposes and other forms of external financial reporting. Where an example does not apply to all types of entities, this is noted. Finally, even though the approaches and examples primarily relate to preparing financial statements for external purposes, any entity seeking to design, implement, and conduct a system of internal control to achieve other external financial reporting objectives may find them beneficial.