Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/511071
TECHNOLOGY IN PRACTICE May 2015 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 21 T E H N O L O Y N P R A C I C E M a y 2 0 5 • w w . P r a c t i A d s c o 1 C H O G T E C H N O L C H G E T G Y P R T I O L O Y O G O L O G Y N P R A C P R C I C E C T I C I N R A I N A 5 w w . M 0 P A P r d v i s 2 o 2 1 2 s o r c s 2 i s . c o m d v i s o r . s . C P i . C P C P C 5 w w 5 1 5 0 1 5 w c 2 o 2 c o e A m c e m 1 wrap-up. Tis ofen results in feld work not being completed and components pushed of to a later time when team members may not be readily available, and it forces them to pick up and put down the same report over and over again with minimal progress. Scheduling "wrap up" days in the office where personnel can focus on completing the engagement and take care of other administrative requirements helps build a buffer, allowing the frm to stick to the next star t date. An impor tant par t of planning is be realistic and not to force a new engagement oppor tunit y between existing scheduled engage- ments when there is no wiggle room available. Forcing more work into an already full schedule is one of the major causes of auditor discontent. APPROPRIATE STAFFING: A nother L ean Si x Sigma tenet focuses on insuring that the right number of "needed" personnel are on the job. While frms may require more staf for inventory observation, are all the personnel required to be at the client site for the entire engage- ment or can they perform portions of this engagement back in the ofce if the work is fed to them from the staf in the feld? For personnel that are only required for a portion of the day, work can be performed from the ofce utilizing remote collaboration tools (Skype, Lync, FaceTime). Te hours saved by not having to commute to/ from client sites can be spent doing productive audit tasks. PRIORITIZED FIELD PROCESSES: Part of the engage- ment planning pro- cess should include risk assessment which prioritizes the most important areas of the audit and identifes those that may be the most difcult. Tese should be prioritized frst so that work can be completed and reviewed while still in the feld, allowing the audit staf to work on the easier steps (instead of doing the easy steps the frst few days of the engagement and then having to scramble to complete the more challenging steps near the end). FIELD REVIEW: Lean Six Sigma pro- m o t e s q u a l i t y review/completeness before passing on any work, which suggests that the review process begin while the audit staf is still in the feld. Clearing the more complex compo- nents of the audit while the staf are onsite allows the reviewer to get insight and provide corrective direc- tion with the goal of having a draf of the fnancial reports and footnotes completed in the feld. With the col- laboration tools mentioned above, the reviewer can connect from offsite locations to review the work and communicate with the staf without having to be onsite. CENTRALIZED DATA SET: For most metropol- itan/suburban audits, we see auditors get- ting reliable Internet access more than 90 percent of the time, allowing the audit binders to be centralized in one location and independently accessed by everyone working on the engage- ment, regardless of their physical l o c at i o n . To d ay 's Ci t r i x , R D S (Remote Desktop Ser vices), and web-based (Tomson AdvanceFlow) audit applications allow for all audit workpapers to be securely accessed by any team member with a reliable Internet connection and the appro- priate credentials. Te beneft of this is that one audit data set within the frm minimizes the impact of a stolen or crashed computer, and allows everyone to work on the data concur- rently. Core Lean Six Sigma analysis techniques point to the importance of keeping work easily accessible, standardized, and free of cluter which can be optimally done when working on one central data set. STANDARDIZED FORMATS: Standardization of re p o r t f o r m at s i s another key tenant to promote "Lean" efciency. Too ofen we see staf f hav ing to learn the fnancial report preferences of specifc partners so that their audit will pass that partners unique review require- ments. Tis makes it harder to train new staff as well as to share staff amongst diferent engagements, so creating a frm standard for fnancial reports promotes frm efciency. With the standardization of the editing tools within Word and Excel, frms are pushing the initial creation of all fnancial reports while onsite so they become par t of the field rev iew. Cosmetic quality control is then done by an administrative person back at the ofce prior to fnal delivery. CLIENT DELIGHT: A fnal tenant of Lean Six Sigma is to focus on optimizing the audit client's experience from "their" viewpoint. With traditional auditing this can be a stretch as auditors are ofen seen as an intrusion into the client's ability to get their day to day work done. Ever y team member should be given the responsibility to identify at least one opportunity for the client to improve their business. Tese ideas can be consolidated at the end of the engagement and presented to the client as a "value add." Inviting the client to lunch a few months afer the engagement to follow up on these ideas is a way to transition the rela- tionship to a "consultative advisor" status which helps the client's busi- ness, instead of an audit engagement which is to be endured. It's important for frms to debrief t he i r c u r r e nt pro c e s s e s at le a s t annually to identif y opportunities for improvement and the introduc- tion of Lean Si x Sigma prov ides a fresh perspective. We suggest you discuss the ten processes above and determine which single item would have the g reatest impact on your audit practice and then push that through completion. A successf ul frst step ofen leads to confdence in trying another. 5 6 8 7 9 10 A successful frst step often leads to confdence in trying another.