I can confidently say that in my history of working in different jobs, under different bosses, and within different organizations; every one of those organizations talked a good game about the desire to change for the better. Now, I am talking about “talk” here, and not “walk”. Walking the talk is an entirely different dynamic. And while many businesses talk a good game about changing the status quo; mustering the courage to change can sometimes be challenging. However, for those that are really serious about changing their businesses for the better, the status quo is often an anathema. Leaders in the audit industry are confronted with the status quo every day, and in ways you might not know.
What is The Status Quo in The Audit Industry?
Today, business leaders in the audit discipline are witnessing shifts in so many areas. Greater fee compression, higher client expectations, and stiffer competition are just a few of the most notable shifts in today’s market. Therefore it’s with this in mind that professionals must decide if their current audit processes are compatible with these changes. In most cases the answer is a clear “No”. Status quo in current audit departments usually takes the form of holding on to older and more manual ways of conducting each step. While there is a comfort level in continuing these manual, often checklist, steps, there is no comfort in the results they produce.
Older And Manual Processes May Be Dragging You Down.
Think about the workflow of a moderately complex audit. Within many offices, a field team is cobbled together to obtain all of the relevant audit documents from a client. These documents are often in various formats, and reside in different locations, in the possession of different people. As you can likely attest, inefficiencies abound. Taking it to the next step; once the data is collected it must be organized and then analyzed, which is normally a gargantuan task. Too much data, with no way to properly analyze it, is now the choke point in the process. These areas of an audit are generally the most guilty suspects in sapping staff time, and confidence in decisions made within the project.
Fortunately Change is Here, And It’s a Beautiful Thing!
The great news about the challenges auditors face using traditional checklist models, is that solutions now exist to make the least productive audit steps a thing of the past. Solutions now exist that allow staff to streamline and condense data collection and analysis time by several if not hundreds of hours. Freed up hours, when used for consultation and advisory services, can turn wasted time into more money for the business.
You Can Now Say You Changed Your Status Quo.
If trading out non-productive audit steps with highly productive ones is in your future, rest assured you are in for some exciting times. Technology now exists that will help transform your audit department from a revenue static proposition to a revenue positive department. Don’t fight change. Rather, fight the status quo. It’s this status quo that is holding you and your business from taking your audit game to the next level.
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