How combining AI with human expertise is making audits more efficient
The audit landscape continues to evolve, but this should not mean your teams spend weeks compiling information and searching for invoices when it comes to the annual audit.
Advanced technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and automation are transforming traditional audit practices, allowing the analysis of vast amounts of data in real time, identify anomalies and provide more insightful and forward-thinking recommendations. This not only streamlines processes but helps ensure higher levels of compliance and transparency, while reducing the time spent on the audit by your finance teams.
Examples of technology making audits more efficient
Here are some examples of how we use technology to improve audit quality and reduce the time you spend on it:
Audit data analytics
Auditing businesses with large volumes of low value transactions, such as retail, leisure and hospitality, historically meant large samples with your finance team spending hours – or even days – sourcing relevant documentation.
We have a dedicated Digital Transformation team, composed of auditors with expertise in data science and a digital transformation group, led by the Chair of the ICAEW Technology Committee. For each of our clients, we develop a bespoke analytics solution by analysing their unique business processes and data flows, which enables us to build automated test of detail that will look at the 100% of data, rather than individual samples.
This approach assesses whether all transactions accurately flow between systems and examines outliers programmatically, thereby providing greater assurance than traditional testing while also significantly reducing the level of manual sampling required. This means that your team can concentrate on your core initiatives, and our professional expertise is channelled to the complex matters on which you most need our advice.
CARE
This tool enhances the identification and testing of riskier transactions. Our innovative clustering technique gives us a unique view into your data, ensuring outliers are more prominent. Every transaction is analysed through our AI-powered algorithm, and a sample of transactions is then selected by the audit team leveraging their deep understanding of your business processes. Our blended approach of AI and professional expertise brings the best of both worlds together and significantly improves the quality of the selection and testing of samples, compared to methods relying on solely AI or human judgement.
DataSnipper (AI)
This market-leading intelligent automation solution automatically extracts information and embeds directly into our working papers with superior accuracy. This facilitates a side-by-side comparison that significantly improves the quality of the review process. DataSnipper’s Financial Statement Suite leverages AI to streamline and enhance the accuracy of financial statement reviews, helping identify all errors that sometimes can be missed by human eye, especially in the large documents.
Open Banking
This allows us to securely access your information in a read-only format (for a period of 90 days) directly from your bank, thus eliminating the need to manually gather and submit bank statements. Instead, a quick authorisation on your part enables us to seamlessly collect the necessary data, saving you time and effort.
How Moore Kingston Smith can help
Audit is evolving – and being at the forefront is key to us and our clients. Our blend of AI and decades of expertise means less time spent on data gathering, fewer inefficiencies and a greater focus on the insights driving real added value.
If you’d like to learn more about streamlining your audit process and unlocking strategic potential, contact us to find out how you can focus your efforts, with no compromise on quality.
