How can you make your audit more efficient?

Writer

Sponsored | Wolters Kluwer

Publication date
September 27, 2024

Categories

It is impossible for any team in any industry to be 100% efficient; After all, we are humans, not robots. But glaring inefficiencies in your accounting practice will leave your team dissatisfied and burned out; Not to mention the time and money you lose as a business.

To do this, we must start by diagnosing what went wrong.

Here are some of the main inefficiencies you may recognize in your application:

• Waiting for other parties: Perhaps the most frustrating part of an audit, waiting for other parties is not only counterproductive, but also out of your control. It can take weeks while waiting for bank approvals.
• Coordination challenges: Coordination and communication are the pillars of audit success, especially in large or dispersed organizations. When communication breaks down, this can lead to duplication of effort, miscommunication, and delays; especially if your software doesn’t talk to other people’s software.
• Repetitive manual tasks: Audits involve many manual tasks that are repetitive and monotonous and therefore prone to human error. With so much process and data to deal with, it can be difficult to get everything right.
• Manual data collection: Like repetitive tasks, manual data collection during an audit can become extremely time-consuming and leaves your work prone to duplication and error when compiled from different sources.

How can accountants create a seamless audit?

Let’s take a look at these practice inefficiencies and see what accountants can do about them. solve them.

I’m waiting for other parties

One of the most frustrating steps in an audit is when you wait for bank confirmations from customers, but it takes a while for them to get back to you and verify their accounts. How can this be solved? Thanks to automation, you can reduce your process from weeks to minutes. Technologies like open banking allow you to confirm details quickly, while blockchain ensures the security and immutability of your audit trail.

coordination difficulties

The solution to systems (people or software) that do not talk to each other is integration. This means getting everyone on the same page, whether from start to finish cloud accounting Allowing everyone to look at the same data with real-time updates or unified and integrated system This saves people time, mistakes, or both. Connecting your teams and technology is crucial.

Repetitive manual tasks

Automation offers a simple solution to repetitive manual tasks during inspection. Embrace digital transformation in your practice and leverage software solutions that enable you to do your job quickly and easily, freeing up time to focus on value-added services such as consulting.

Manual data collection

Once again, technology offers a simple solution to manual data collection. To find Solutions that can help you Reduce paperwork, customize your workflow, and increase quality control instead of entering everything manually.

Optimize your control with fast bank confirmations.

Bank approvals in the UK play a central role in the audit process, but they don’t have to take weeks. Instead, reducing them to a few minutes increases the efficiency of your inspection. open banking It offers a cost-effective solution as you can quickly share financial information between applications and businesses. Easily work with customers to verify their accounts without lengthy email correspondence and potential data breaches.

While it’s still impossible to achieve 100% efficiency at the robot level, technology can help us automate manual and repetitive tasks, freeing up time to focus on what we do best: building human relationships.