Many auditors assume that a quality audit means prioritizing work over personal life. But with the dawn of AI, more and more audit professionals are using the latest advances in technology to better identify risk and gain meaningful insight from the audit community—all while gaining that much needed work-life balance.
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| What challenges do auditors face today? |
| How can audit firms use technology to boost confidence and improve work-life balance? |
| Ready to improve auditor work-life balance? |
What challenges do auditors face today?
When we look at the current audit landscape, several key challenges rise to the top. From staffing shortages to inefficiencies, it’s no secret that many of today’s auditors are stressed and overworked. And many often worry about identifying all of the risks related to their engagement.
In addition, disconnected audit applications often hinder productivity which leads to version control and data quality issues. Further, when client accounting systems lack standardization, the process of aggregating and digesting financial data becomes cumbersome, resulting in delays and errors that can negatively impact your firm’s bottom line.
If you find yourself toggling between disparate systems or dealing with unstandardized client data, your audit team is also likely struggling to achieve a work-life balance. Now throw into the mix the rise of remote audits and the need for cloud-based collaboration between team members and clients. It’s a challenging environment for auditors, to say the least.
“If you have locally stored software or you have more of a paper mindset…then it becomes very, very challenging for teams to work remotely, or even have a hybrid approach, because they are used to sitting in a conference room and just kind of hashing it out and all heading out together,” says Colleen Bellers, Senior Consultant for Thomson Reuters.
Amidst this perfect storm of challenges, one thing is clear. It’s time for auditors to use technology to their advantage and transform the audit process.
“Collaboration is a key consideration for firms. They need their teams to communicate with each other, and in a cloud environment they can do that very easily,” says Bellers.
How can audit firms use technology to boost confidence and improve work-life balance?
The answer is Thomson Reuters Cloud Audit Suite, a comprehensive suite of products that enables audit professionals to complete audits smarter, faster, and with total confidence for greater peace of mind and improved work-life balance.
“A lot of firms are using a number of different solutions from different vendors and so they are essentially pushing data back and forth between different solutions,” says Bellers.
“With the Cloud Audit Suite, you can actually bring it all together and then tie information together so that you’re not pushing and pushing and pushing, and then roll that data forward. And that’s where that huge time savings comes in.”
The Cloud Audit Suite comprises of Engagement Manager, Guided Assurance, and Confirmation to manage the full spectrum of audit tasks in one place.
Benefits of Assisted Decision Making
With Assisted Decision Making through Guided Assurance, auditors can tap into anonymized data from other Cloud Audit Suite users to suggest risks they may not have considered—all without leaving their engagement. This is a powerful tool in risk identification and decision-making, thus boosting audit confidence and enabling work-life balance.
More specifically, Cloud Audit Suite features include:
- Real-time collaboration. Work from the same document with your colleagues without worrying about version control.
- Cloud-based technology. Securely access the audit online, from anywhere, with a cloud-based solution that updates data and stakeholders in real-time.
- Assisted decision-making. Proactively tap into anonymized data from other Cloud Audit Suite users to identify risks you may not have considered.
- Secure confirmations. Manage the online confirmation process without leaving the Cloud Audit Suite platform.
- Seamless workflow. Simplify the audit process with an end-to-end solution, including the only online confirmation service and integration with third-party analytics.
- Leading methodology. Backed by experienced editors and authors, the audit methodology ensures the materials are accurate to help you pass peer review and enjoy greater peace of mind.
On the benefits of the Cloud Audit Suite, Bellers said, “It allows you to be able to breathe if you’re an auditor.”
Ready to improve auditor work-life balance?
If you’re ready to leverage the power of AI to transform your audit practice, contact us today to learn more about the Cloud Audit Suite — our leading team of consultants can help guide your firm to more confident audits and a greater work-life balance.
For more information on strategies to improve work-life balance for your audit staff, read our white paper on winning strategies to revolutionize your audit practice.
