At BHP, our key focus is on audit quality and adding value to our clients. The world of audit is changing quickly and we are very much moving with the times. We are one of the first mid-tier firms who have decided to put the spotlight on data analytics in 2019, using modern technology advances to rethink the way we audit and how we add value to our clients.
Over the last 2 years BHP has worked with a leading data analytics software provider to truly enhance and develop our service offering. To that end, we’re really pleased we are able to offer our new specialist auditing tool – Inflo – to all of our charity and not for profit clients.
This innovative software allows us to dig deeper into our client’s data than ever before as we are able to obtain and mine 100% of the accounting transactions. This offers us an incredible amount of insight, which in turn we can share with Trustees and management.
The data is tested for completeness, patterns in the processing of transactions are established and routine tests are run against the data and displayed to the audit team. We no longer spend time performing ‘needle in a haystack’ testing but are able to zone straight in on the riskiest transactions and offer our clients much greater insight into their accounting function.
At a glance, we are able to examine any unusual accounting activity, trends or risky proceedings. Inflo allows us to quickly run a set of tests across the whole data set, it looks for key words in descriptions, out of working hours postings and helps to identify related party transactions and therefore allows for a significantly improved audit and a greater chance of finding any potential fraud.
The response from our clients has been overwhelmingly positive. We have been able to offer our clients a much greater insight into their accounting function and really add value, particularly where the board of trustees/management are separate from the finance function.
In addition, everything is much more transparent. The online portal allows for a clever sharing of files with the audit progress being monitored and responsibilities assigned at each stage.
Other industries have long used technology to improve their service offering so we are pleased to be at the forefront of offering this added value and improved audit process to our clients, thereby giving the trustees confidence in our auditing procedures.
