There are several users of the financial statements prepared by a company.
Some of these users include the existing shareholders, potential shareholders, competitors, customers, management, employees, the government, lenders, and the general public.
All these stakeholders can be interested in a company’s financial statements to help them make wise decisions when dealing with the said company.
For instance, a potential shareholder can be interested in a company’s financial records and reports to help them make sound investment decisions.
With well-prepared financial statements, a potential shareholder can know whether the company in question will continue operating for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, lenders might want to know a company’s financial position so that they can make wise decisions on whether to continue lending to the company or not.
However, for a company’s financial statements to be helpful to the users, they must be carefully audited.
This article walks you through some simple yet effective ways that can help improve the efficiency of your auditing process.
Apart from the tips explained in this article, you can also install audit management software on your system. Such software helps improve the quality of your audit process, thus increasing your audit efficiency.
To learn more about audit management software, you can click this link: https://www.etq.com/audit-management/
What is Auditing?
Auditing is the process of examining the financial records and other books of account by an independent person known as an auditor.
The main objective of auditing is to help the auditor form an opinion on whether the company’s books of accounts have been properly kept or not.
Also, an auditor expresses their opinion on whether the prepared statements reflect a true position of the company in question.
After auditing, an auditor can either give an unqualified opinion or a qualified report. An unqualified report is a positive statement showing that proper books of accounts were kept and that the prepared financial statements reflect a true and fair view of the company as at a certain date.
On the other hand, a qualified report indicates that proper books of accounts weren’t kept and that the prepared financial statements don’t give a true picture of the company.
How Can You Improve the Efficiency of Your Auditing Process?
For users of the audited report to make informed decisions, the prepared financial records must reflect the company’s true position in terms of its assets and liabilities. This can only be possible if you can improve the efficiency of your auditing process.
Here are some strategies you can employ to help improve the efficiency of your auditing process.
1. Plan For The Audit
The first step that can help improve the efficiency of your audit process is to plan. Audit planning involves drafting the specific guidelines to be followed when conducting the actual audit. It helps eliminate any risks and unnecessary costs, and misunderstandings during the audit process.
When planning, you need to consider the nature and timing of the audit. This helps the auditor collaborate with the client in an organized manner, spend less time, thus improving the efficiency of the audit process.
2. Develop Your Team
One of the essential strategies you can employ to improve the efficiency of your auditing process is to have a passionate and dedicated team in place. For this reason, you may want to hire qualified and dedicated personnel.
After recruiting a competent team, you need to develop and train them continuously. For anyone to qualify to join your team, they must be holders of a Certified Public Accountant certificate or its equivalent. Such people understand all the relevant auditing standards, and working with such people can help improve your efficiency.
3. Collaborate With Internal Auditors
In most companies, you’ll always find an established internal audit department. The internal audit department consists of the company’s employees who are responsible for the continuous audit of financial statements prepared by the company’s accountants.
So, because auditing involves using the sampling technique to get evidence, it would be helpful to collaborate with the internal auditors. Collaborating and partially relying on internal audit functions to get audit evidence can help you spend less time and energy during your audit process. This also helps improve your efficiency.
4. Optimize Modern Technologies
For the last few decades, many firms have moved their operations online, and there’s a need for auditors to follow the same trend. That’s where computerized auditing and optimization of modern technologies come in.
The use of computers and modern technologies allows auditors to work from anywhere, and serve different clients simultaneously. This helps them save on time and costs, and ultimately allowing them to improve on their efficiency.
So, instead of moving from one company to another with many files, you can computerize your auditing functions and employ modern technologies to make your work easier.
Takeaway
While the auditing can seem overwhelming, by implementing proper strategies, the process can be very simple. With that said, planning for the audit, developing and retraining your staff, collaborating with the internal auditors, and optimizing modern technologies can help improve the efficiency of your auditing process.
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