How we have adapted our audit processes to be conducted remotely during the coronavirus outbreak
One of the key services that Ellacotts has been providing to our clients for many years’ is auditing and assurance.
This usually involves our team visiting client premises, undertaking stock takes, checking processes and compiling an audit report to be reviewed and signed afterwards.
That was until Coronavirus stopped day to day life as we knew it!
However, the compliance requirements haven’t stopped and that’s why we’ve developed ways of conducting remote audits to ensure our clients can still fulfil their audit requirements.
For many years, we have had a paperless audit system which has ensured maximum efficiency and has kept the price competitive, so we were already in a good position prior to social distancing being put in place.
Our team have all been successfully working from home since mid-March and we use Microsoft Teams to hold both internal and external meetings, share documents and review work. Although, we’re no longer in the office, life at Ellacotts is still operating as normal.
By combining our paperless audit system and the use of Microsoft Teams, we’ve already been able to successfully conduct several remote audits since the lockdown started, and have many more in progress over the next few weeks.
We use Microsoft Teams to hold video calls with clients for audit planning, update and review meetings, sharing documents, reviewing processes, conducting remote stock takes and asking necessary questions. We can continue to build and develop the same strong relationships with your team as we’ve always done, so we can provide you with a fully tailored audit, offer proactive advice and identify ways to improve your financial reporting systems.
We have also been keeping up to date with the Financial Reporting Committee to ensure we follow their guidance for the ways we conduct our audits and gather evidence.
Aside from the current social distancing restrictions, there are many advantages of remote audits for your business:
- It saves time and costs on travelling to your offices meaning our team can spend their time efficiently on conducting the audit
- There’s no disruption to your business by us being in your offices for several days or weeks at a time
- If you have more than one location with key staff spread out across them, we can remotely “visit” your offices and hold meetings with the necessary people on the same day to save calendar headaches
- Microsoft Teams is extremely user friendly and everything can be recorded and documents shared so everything is accessible to all involved
If you would like to discuss your audit requirements, please contact our team or read more about our audit services.
