Estudo de caso: Como a Rehmann, umas das 50 principais empresas de auditoria dos EUA, está buscando a auditoria do futuro

Rehmann is a top 50 firm (#38 on the 2018 Accounting Today list) with 24 offices across Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. Its firm-wide assurance department requests thousands of (primarily bank) confirmations every year. Initially, Rehmann rolled out the Confirmation platform to only a few offices, but once the faster confirmation replies and overall time savings became evident, use of Confirmation quickly expanded throughout the company and is now a tool that the entire assurance department, more than 200 auditors, relies on daily.

Brent Pruim, now a Strategic Analyst with Rehmann, started with the company as an auditor himself, managing audits and preparing tax returns. Today, he’s the tech liaison for his department, the leader of the information technology general controls team, and a member of his department’s IT subcommittee. In his current role, Pruim is responsible for leading the charge to ensure Rehmann is identifying the audit of the future. Pruim often speaks at industry events — for organizations like AICPA, the MICPA (Michigan), GFOA, AGA, MTA, and more — about this exact topic; about how technology is changing and will change the audit and tax industries. Day-to-day, he makes sure Rehmann is taking advantage of the efficiencies offered by emerging tech in the industry, including how Confirmation fits into his charge of leading the company toward the future. 

Trocando a incerteza pela segurança 

Pruim’s audit experience includes both public- and private-sector audits, security being an equal concern between the two. “Our clients are very busy people — they want to make sure the data they share with us is secure, but don’t want to spend a lot of time managing the risks that come with sharing this type of information,” he says. “With paper confirmations, we would request that clients complete a confirmation form using a MS Word or Excel document, then print, sign, and send it back to us. That’s a very time-consuming process and certainly not the most secure way to share confidential information.”

Since instituting Confirmation, these transactions have become much easier and far more secure. Pruim explained, “It’s helped us organize a very routine part of our audit process. We have been able to streamline that process and stop chasing paper. Confirmation gives us and our clients a great level of comfort that we no longer have confidential information on pieces of paper floating around in the mail.”

“Confirmation gives us and our clients a great level of comfort that we no longer have confidential information on pieces of paper floating around in the mail.” 

Brent Pruim,  Rehmann Strategic Analyst

Pruim and his IT team use various security measures when evaluating partnerships, so to have his and Rehmann’s seal of approval on the security of Confirmation speaks volumes. Security comes in many forms. The status of each confirmation is now always at the ready, eliminating uncertainties that come along with the paper process. No more wondering about the mail delivery time, or who mailed what and when. Two-way communication via Confirmation relieves this concern. As Pruim puts it, “With Confirmation, you can utilize notifications, and if you’re questioning whether something is coming in or being processed at any point, you can simply check — it’s all at your fingertips.” 

Pruim continued, “Before using Confirmation we could be chasing down paper confirmations for weeks. We would call the financial institution, and they might say they never received anything, meaning you have to contact the client and inconvenience them to sign a new confirmation so you can mail it out. Avoiding issues and uncertainties like this can end up saving us several hours over the course of a single engagement.” Simply put, there were no warm fuzzy feelings before. Now, the answers are all one click away for Rehmann’s audit teams.

Better Communication Has Its Benefits 

Pruim treina os usuários para utilizar a Confirmation e presta assistência aos clientes, quando necessário. Ao longo de sua carreira, ele obteve vários benefícios importantes para seus colegas e para os clientes da Rehmann.

Melhorar o relacionamento com os clientes
Pruim stresses the importance of the initial communication with a client — letting them know they’ll be receiving emailed confirmation-related requests from Confirmation, what that means, and from there, firm-to-client communication through Confirmation becomes a very self-sustaining process.

É excelente para o relacionamento com os clientes da Rehmann, afirma Pruim. “Depois de explicar que estamos utilizando essa tecnologia para tornar as coisas mais fáceis e seguras, eles aderem imediatamente. Eles clicam em um botão no e-mail e isso nos autoriza a confirmar contas com apenas um clique. No meu ver, isso é o que realmente melhora a experiência do cliente — não precisamos ficar entrando em contato com eles para fazer mais solicitações.”

“Os clientes nos autorizam com um único clique. Isso é o que realmente melhora a experiência do cliente — não precisamos ficar entrando em contato com eles para fazer mais solicitações.”

Brent Pruim,  Rehmann Strategic Analyst

Melhorar suas auditorias
Outro benefício ao usar a Confirmation é que, se algo mudar de repente nos balanços, a equipe de Pruim poderá fazer a reconfirmação — no ato e sem nenhum custo. “Quem responde as confirmações geralmente responde rapidamente também. Essa interação com quem está respondendo e o fato de você poder fazer perguntas em caso de dúvidas é um ótimo recurso ”, revelou Pruim. Essa possibilidade de comunicação entre os lados facilita o acompanhamento do processo de auditoria e reconfirmações que possam ser necessárias. A transparência na comunicação facilita os negócios — incluindo o processo de confirmações de auditoria.

Ease of Use Leads to More Opportunities

Para seus colegas da área de assurance, Pruim não precisa fazer muito pelos novos usuários da Confirmation além de fornecer credenciais de login e uma rápida visão geral da interface. “O sistema funciona perfeitamente e é muito fácil de usar. A maioria dos nossos colegas e clientes aprende a usar o sistema após um breve treinamento de 5 a 10 minutos. Trabalhamos com vários formulários ao longo da auditoria, e usar essa tecnologia para as confirmações garante que realizamos o procedimento de confirmação adequadamente e com a documentação correta”, afirma Pruim.

Inspirada pela facilidade de utilização da Confirmation, a equipe de Pruim decidiu explorar novas maneiras de utilizar a tecnologia para aumentar a eficiência. “Estamos nos preparando para tornar a solicitação de confirmações para cada cliente uma tarefa mais padronizada e agrupada. A Confirmation vai nos ajudar a organizar melhor nosso tempo. Por exemplo, se um colega tiver em um período de menos demanda, em novembro ou dezembro ele poderá adiantar as autorizações para todas as próximas auditorias de todo o escritório e iniciar as confirmações com antecedência. Isso permitirá que a confirmações já estejam concluídas quando iniciarmos o trabalho de campo da auditoria. Poder contar com a equipe administrativa para executar essa tarefa também otimiza o tempo dos nossos auditores, para que eles possam se dedicar a outros serviços para os nossos clientes.” Muitos clientes da Confirmation também estão aproveitando os benefícios de centralizar as solicitações de confirmação.

Results by the Numbers

Ao usar a Confirmation, a Rehmann aumentou seus totais anuais de confirmações de ativos, passivos e títulos concluídos em 13% a 20%, a cada ano. Confira os dados:

Confirmações concluídas
Ativo
2016: 1.763
2017: 2.195
2018: 2.904

Liability
2016: 219
2017: 248
2018: 316

Security
2016: 10
2017: 18
2018: 39

Em 2018, confirmações de ativos aumentaram mais de 32% em relação a 2017. Isso significa que as garantias para as empresas e seus clientes está aumentando, e o departamento de assurance está trabalhando com mais transparência e precisão do que nunca.

While there are no hard numbers to report, Pruim says ample time is being saved. He notes, “The response time for a confirmation is extremely fast — we’ll have some within 24 hours, and that’s where the real time savings comes from. There’s a lot less back and forth. We complete thousands of confirmations per year, so if we’re saving an hour on each one, that’s huge. For clients with 20, sometimes more than 30, accounts, we’re taking what’s essentially a decentralized, time-consuming process and putting it into a very centralized structured process. For those larger accounts, it’s amazing how much time you can save.”

Efficiency is a timeless key to doing business effectively, and Pruim already has his eye on how the audit business could evolve to become even more efficient in the future.

A auditoria do futuro

With his expertise in and exposure to technology advancements within the accounting profession, and the application of those advancements within Rehmann, Pruim is a great resource to provide perspective on what the audit of the future could look like.

Embora ele acredite que não haverá robôs auditores realizando o trabalho de campo tão cedo, Pruim imagina que haverão muitas mudanças interessantes nesse processo. O primeiro indício? A tecnologia na nossa profissão não é modismo — é permanente. “Em nossa profissão, existe muita hesitação em adotar novas tecnologias e ferramentas, mas quando converso com nossa liderança, vejo que eles estão bastante abertos e entendem que é o caminho a seguir. Eles apoiam e acolhem essas mudanças, que estão chegando rapidamente, e nós profissionais precisamos estar prontos”, ele acrescenta.

As for Pruim’s perspective on what will define the audit of the future in a single word, it’s data. The second word? Advisory-driven. But going paperless is still a big first step for many firms and clients alike. “At Rehmann we’re essentially paperless, but industry-wide we’re still in a pivotal spot. While we’re not rolling out with paper binders to do audits, we’re still scanning audit support. We still receive a significant amount of paper from clients. In fact, now that we can confirm via paper through Confirmation, I expect the percentage of our overall confirmations that run through Confirmation, currently around 75 percent, to increase even more,” Pruim predicts.

What else does Pruim see when looking ahead? Here’s a few things he has top of mind.

• Data-driven processes: We’ll spend a lot more time analyzing data.
• Volume of data: The more data we obtain through cloud-based accounting application connectors, and utilizing the blockchain to verify the transactions, the more fluidly we can audit, while providing valuable insight to our clients by utilizing these tools.
• In 10 to 15 years: The jury is still out, but the concept of continuous audits could become a reality, which could make the audit process more ongoing, more advisory-based, and more seamless than it is now.

When we asked Pruim if “busy season” could ever become a thing of the past, he noted that different industry sectors have different busy seasons now (public vs. private, for example), and that while those spikes could smooth out a bit if the audit process does in fact become more constant, he doubts they will fade entirely.

Only time will tell what the audit of the future holds, but with the steps Rehmann is putting in place, the firm will surely benefit as an early adopter.