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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Ready to Innovate? Ask These Six Questions First

man with hand on chin, looking at computer screen
About to jump in with technology? Hold on.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” – Albert Einstein

Innovation means doing things differently and doing different things. But what does that mean in practice?

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I see audit firms around the country who set up “Innovation Teams,” or appoint someone to be the Chief of Innovation. The problem is that if these are home-grown teams, or if no one on the team has ever had any experience working with anything other than a traditional audit firm, at best, their efforts will be like moving around deck chairs. Many of these Chiefs of Innovation don’t have an innovative bone in their bodies, and they don’t know what they don’t know. All they know is the old way of doing things.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Don’t Let Tech Fears Slow You Down

hand below light bulb

Audit requires innovation.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

Auditors, like most accountants, tend to be conservative in nature. We tend to be reluctant to change unless we’re on a burning platform.

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As I’ve said before, audit is at a crossroads. We can continue the way we’ve been doing audit and will likely go extinct. Or we can make changes that will keep audit relevant and valuable for the next generations.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Use Innovation to Rethink Client Service

Businesswoman opens door to brick wall

Six roadblocks to avoid.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

When most auditors hear the word “innovation,” they think it has to do with getting more technology. But that’s only a small part of what innovation means. Innovation isn’t just throwing more technology at your audit processes. That approach is often just replicating with technology what you have done in paper for decades.

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According to an article in Forbes, “Innovation is the rethinking or reimagining of a business process that already exists.” Applied to audit, innovation is reimagining what audit is and what audit can be. It’s the transformation of audit from a commoditized compliance-only function to a sought-after and highly valued service that produces benefits to the clients who use that service and to the firms who provide that service.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Rethinking Audits: Shift to Advisory

four people on lower stairs, one on upper stairs, gap between

Move from quality control to quality assurance.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

For decades, A&A has stood for audit and accounting. It’s been focused on compliance. But sooner than we may want to believe, business owners and stakeholders will be using technology to provide the assurance they need.

This is already happening. To remain viable, we need to move A&A from audit and accounting to assurance and advisory.

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Now all auditors take the quality control standards of our profession seriously. But quality control that only happens at the end is more about satisfying the minimum requirements for compliance. It won’t let you move out of providing the commodity service that clients need to keep their stakeholders happy. Quality at the end doesn’t provide an opportunity to really look under the hood and think about what the client really wants.
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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

How Empowerment Boosts Your Firm and Team

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

Bonus: Turn your clients into loyal fans.

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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