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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

What Empowerment Can Do for Your Team

smiling woman standing at end of table, speaking with three seated colleagues

Unlock intellect and innovation.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

“If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.” – Kobe Bryant

I do a lot of work with firms to help them improve their project management, where everything is color-coded as red, green or yellow, depending on how the project is going. Frequently what I initially see is that everything is green for weeks on end, but still no nearer completion.

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My instinct tells me that those projects that were green four weeks ago really weren’t green then. But out of fear of retribution, the staff were all afraid to tell the partner that something wasn’t going as well as expected. It takes about three to four weeks before people start being sincere about the job status.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Is Your Staff Truly Empowered?

Three people having discussion at table over document and water glasses

This doesn’t overlook accountability. Quite the opposite.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

I don’t know if it was luck or by design, but when I started out at McGladrey, I landed on a team that was already doing the kinds of innovative work that I coach teams today to try out. I’ve never been a status quo type of person, so that resonated with me. I was always trying to find a better way to do things.

In my first six months, we were already working with data, using the primitive data software tools available back then, or, more likely, that we built ourselves. I was in an environment that created the art of what’s possible. We were willing to try new things. I didn’t have mentors or co-workers who would tell me “That’s not the way we do it here,” so I was able to actually do the things I thought about.

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Audit Has Become an Exercise in Filling Out Forms

Back then, at the beginning of my career, we weren’t under fee or time pressure. We were encouraged to talk to the client, to ask questions and to understand their business. But as fixed fee and fee pressures started to grow, the mindset of audit became focused on getting the work done quickly, not on providing insights or value to the clients. The empowerment mindset that I got from my team in those early days began to fade.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Reimagine What Audit Is … and What Will Be Audited

hand below light bulb

Artificial intelligence and other technologies challenge us to understand what these tools can tell us.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

“The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.” – Peter Drucker

A big challenge for firms has always been change management. We’re all used to doing our work the way we’ve done it for years. Many auditors learned to audit by looking at last year’s workpapers and repeating that approach, but with this year’s numbers. So when I tell groups of auditors that the way we’ve been auditing since the dawn of time will have to change, there’s pushback.

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Change is hard. No one wants to change unless that change will bring significant, measurable results. Implementing just one or two of the ideas I have discussed in my posts can be uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Innovation takes most auditors way outside their comfort zone. But change is also essential, unless we’re all willing to see our profession go the way of the dinosaur.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Be Flexible about Your Audit Team

Four businesswoman having a meeting around a table

Not everyone needs an accounting degree.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

Firms these days are throwing technology at audit and calling it innovation. But if you try to roll out too much at one time, that’s a disaster. Your people won’t have any time to talk to the client and figure out what’s going on in the business if they’re too busy trying to figure out how all the pieces of technology all work together.

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A better approach is to prioritize the technology rollouts and cut those in half. Focus on the two or three that are the most important. If you try to do too much, your implementation will fail. A partial implementation won’t get you anywhere. Partial implementations tend to result in complicated workarounds, so the new tech not only doesn’t save time or effort, but it actually makes it harder to get the work done.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Two Questions to Ask about Audit Tech Tools

hand pointing to Gantt chart

Don’t limit your choices to those developed for accounting.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

For years, as I’ve been visiting firms all across the country, I’ve asked them, “Do you honestly feel that you’ve achieved a substantial return on your investment of technology in the audit?” And they tell me, “Well, we’re now at three monitors in the field.” I remind these firms that I haven’t asked about their use of computers and peripherals. Every firm is using technology, but few evaluate the return on investment they’re getting.

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I’m a huge believer of embracing technology, but I think we need to think differently about how we use it. In my view, the current state is nothing but tremendous opportunity for all of you to learn what all these new tools, from Mindbridge to Inflo and everything new that we haven’t even conceived of yet, can do. They all accomplish an objective. It’s just a matter of figuring out which one you want to do, and go and dive in.
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