ACL CAse study

CHALLeNGesContinued business growth and market visibility »

Adding value to the service provided to clients »

Working within a wide-variety of client ERP systems »and data management environments

sOLutIONACL Audit Analytics »

Key BeNeFItsExpanded consulting business »

Reduced time to complete client audits by up »to 20 percent

improved bottom line results »

INdustRyFinance »

ReGIONNorth America »

Cherry, Bekaert & HollandBuilding a Dynamic Auditing Practice Using ACL Solutions

“Using ACL technology we know we can find a needle in the haystack and it’s given us an increased confidence in the services we provide our clients.””

Bonnie Cox, Senior Audit Manager

Cherry, Bekaert & Holland (CB&H), a leading accounting firm in the southeastern US, faced a challenge common to organizations that deliver high-value professional services – how to expand the business and grow revenues, while achieving productivity gains that would translate into lower costs for the firm and its clients. More than five years ago, CB&H identified that ACL technology could provide an answer to this imperative, but few of the firm’s 450 auditors and accountants were using the software. To improve staff efficiency and increase the usage of ACL software, CB&H management formed an internal committee to promote strategic use of ACL audit analytics capabilities in their client engagements. CB&H realized a significant return on its ACL investment with improvements to its own bottom line results, while remaining very cost competitive within its client base.

Customer ProfileHeadquartered in Richmond, Virginia, CB&H is the 19th largest CPA firms in the United States with annual revenues of over US $60 million a year and 25,000 clients across diverse industries. With clients located primarily in the southeastern US, the firm focuses on private companies, government, and non-profit organizations.

ChallengesTo advance business growth and market visibility, CB&H management wanted to create a unique market position that would highlight the value of their firm’s client services. They needed to create a value proposition to distinguish CB&H from competing regional CPA firms.

CB&H’s business model focuses on performing external audits for mid-sized organizations with no internal audit or IT departments. These are often short-term projects that must be completed in less than a month, with minimal impact on in-house resources. Therefore reducing the time required to complete an audit by even a few days greatly increases the engagement efficiency and profitability, while adding value to the service provided to clients.

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ACL CAse study

External audits for clients often require auditors to test data populations with large numbers of transactions comprised of small balances. Add to that the need to deal with a variety of data sources and multiple application platforms, and technology becomes a critical and necessary tool. With each CB&H audit team working with hundreds of different clients, the firm needed a flexible, scale able technology solution that could work with a wide variety of client Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and data management environments.

SolutionWhen ACL techonogy was first introduced to CB&H the firm’s management formed a committee to help its auditors become familiar with the ways ACL could assist them in streamlining audit processes. Their goal was to reduce cost duplication, detect errors and fraud, and minimize losses on behalf of their clients. Bonnie Cox, a senior audit manager at CB&H, is the chair of the committee and an avid ACL user: “Once I got the committee going, we were able to share many ways ACL could make our jobs simpler and more efficient, and the use of ACL really took off.”

Since making the commitment to a “best practices” use of ACL software, CB&H auditors have been able to transition from performing tests based on random sampling of data, a process neither very efficient nor effective, to testing 100 percent of the data, while focusing staff time on those transactions that represent the greatest financial and operational risk to clients. Through strategic enterprise-wide use of ACL technology, CB&H also further streamlined its audit practice, transforming certain procedures, reports, and client data into standard formats that can be used with other programs and applications within the firm, regardless of the source of the data.

Using the powerful analytics of ACL software, the CB&H audit team can drill down quickly to focus on exceptions or anomalies. “We sort data populations from high to low, look for duplicate dollar amounts, and everything that does not meet our expectations will then be studied further,” says Cox. “When a client comes with a huge list of accounts receivable,

our auditors can ask them about specific invoices after running various tests on their data. More often than not, our clients are stunned when we immediately pinpoint their problem accounts with no previous clues from them. That’s when they are sure we have done a thorough job.”

Continuing to advance the skills of its audit teams is an ongoing commitment at CB&H. At a recent ACL training session within the firm, 36 staff from 12 different offices enrolled for intermediate level training.

ResultsSince beginning to use ACL technology to maximize the efficiency and range of its audit services, CB&H has:

Broadened its consulting business to include �

additional services, adding value to the client engagements without increasing the scope of billable hours. For example, in addition to testing accounts payable, CB&H can also analyze a client’s cash disbursements for duplicate payments to vendors and other suppliers, with no additional cost incurred by CB&H.

Reduced time to complete most client audits by �

between five and 20 percent, while at the same time providing a more comprehensive level of service. Clients benefit from better testing, with 100 percent of data populations examined as opposed to simple sampling, and through focused investigation of items for in-depth analysis rather than random selections.

Expanded use of � ACL as the technology underpinning for its audit practice, growing from a single individual to 40 people in 12 office locations – within five years.

Developed an internal listing on the firm’s �

Intranet site that allows all 450 staff to find the closest ACL expert within the firm when seeking guidance on when and where to use ACL.