Why Outsource Professional Audit Support Services?

One of the critical services that many clients expect an accounting firm to deliver is an audit. A financial audit is part and parcel of any business’s finance compliance goals. If your firm doesn’t have a financial audit in its repertoire, a good idea will be outsourcing audit readiness and accounting operations support services.

What is a financial audit?

There are diverse financial statements associated with a business, including balance sheets, cash flow statements, income statements, and more. The company leverages these statements to tell its stakeholders that the business is doing well and its performance is expected. These stakeholders include employees, investors, regulatory bodies, and so on. The company must provide these statements at pre-determined periods so that the business’s financial strengths (and weaknesses) can be evaluated, analyzed and decisions can be taken to zero in on the right trajectory for this business.

But there is the elephant in the room. It is called accuracy. There is absolutely no doubt that businesses will try to maintain the highest standards of accuracy (and integrity) while maintaining financial statements. However, the trust factor is taken many notches higher if an accuracy check of these financial statements is conducted by a qualified and reputed the third party. In the United States, Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS), a set of principles are followed by auditors while they conduct a drill-down review of a business’s financial statements.

The purpose behind this financial audit is simple. A favorable audit report will enhance confidence levels in a particular business’s financial statements. More importantly, it will also offer significant insights into the areas where the business should improve its accounting processes.

The Importance of Offering Compliance & Audit Services

It makes a great deal of business sense if it offers professional audit support services. It is seen as a big plus and promising addition to the existing set of accounting services. However, not all firms can offer these services. The problem is two-fold – lack of expertise and time. The former can be solved by hiring a team expert in financial audit and its many aspects, such as audit support & preparation services. But there is a problem. The firm might not be able to on-board talent because it might not be financially feasible for them to do so. A smaller and mid-sized firm who want to keep their overheads in control might not have the budget to bring auditors aboard.

The solution here is to outsource audit services. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that will tell you why it makes sense to outsource professional audit support services:

Add Value-Added Services to Your Portfolio

Your firm might be great at tax preparation services or even payroll services but, what will help you grow your client base is offering high-value services such as audit support. A financial audit is essential for a business and assures stakeholders of its financial position. In such a scenario, the role of an auditor is exceptionally critical, and auditing as a function is in great demand. According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics employment outlook for accountants and auditors will grow by 4% between 2019-2029. Even if you don’t have enough financial resources to invest in a team of auditors, outsourcing is a quicker and more sustainable way to add auditing expertise to your firm. Outsourcing audit support services will help you add a group of outsourced auditors who can offer audit readiness and accounting operations support services.

As you will be aware, outsourcing brings substantial cost benefits to the table, and money saved is essentially money gained. Accountants can invest these savings in other strategic business growth avenues.

Immediate Scalability

Think of a long-winded process of hiring a suitable auditor or an auditing team for your firm. This includes a series of interviews, and once your firm identifies the right people, they need to fit your budget. Not many firms can make the time to conduct these interviews, and for many, the process is highly time-consuming as zeroing on skilled professionals is just half the battle won. The firm should also be able to afford these professionals. And therefore, the process of identifying the right talent goes on and on. This is the kind of time that firms can ill afford to spend.

Outsourcing audit support services remove the pain associated with scaling a firm. All you need to is work with a reputed accounting outsourcing services provider with a team of auditors. You need to make sure these auditors are experienced in the US auditing standards, and that’s it. You sign a contract backed by SLAs, and you can begin outsourcing auditing work to them. It is as simple as that.

Manage All Audit Aspects

The most significant benefit of outsourcing audit support services is that your outsourced auditor or team of outsourced auditors will handle every aspect of the audit. Whether it is interacting with the firm’s clients for auditing queries, migrating traditional excel audit files to electronic files, or performing casting procedures on accounts for internal consistency or some other aspect, they will help you manage every auditing activity with finesse. You must be well aware of the kind of auditing services offered by the auditing outsourcing services provider. This awareness can be drawn by talking to the team and conducting an interview of the time assigned to your project.

All your firm needs to do is evaluate the work delivered and update the client about the work in progress and timelines.

Meet Client Expectations

Outsourcing compliance and audit support services helps you optimally manage client expectations. There are plenty of clients who expect firms to offer a bouquet of accounting services. They proceed to choose an accounting services package that suits their needs best, and auditing could be a part of this package. Rather than working with different firms offering different services, they would like to work with just one firm that offers all the services they need. If your firm comes good on the client expectations, you can keep getting more work from this client. This helps in client retention. 89% of companies say excellent customer service drives client retention. So, if you are focusing on client satisfaction, there are all chances that the client will keep using the firm’s accounting services. Adding new services like audit support helps you satisfy client needs better.

Another aspect of managing client expectations is that the services delivered need to be timely, accurate, and meet the highest standards of excellence. These aspects can be baked into the SLAs that you work out with the professional audit support services outsourcing firm. This way, you ensure that your clients are happy with the services delivered.

Choosing The Right Audit Support Services Provider

Outsource professional audit support services to a provider with a deep-seated understanding of US audit procedures and standards and not just theoretical but hands-on knowledge. This understanding must be backed by a successful track record of having worked on diverse audit requirements of accounting firms.

How do you find such an audit support & preparation outsourcing services provider? Enter the keyword’ compliance and audit support outsourcing services .’ You will see a list of providers on the search engine results pages. You must prepare a list of providers you want to work with and get in touch with them. Talk to their sales reps, ask the right questions, and assess their services based on their answers. Also, talk to their clients and evaluate their infrastructure from the technology and data security perspective. Once assured about the quality of their services, create SLAs and sign on the dotted line.

Start experiencing the benefits of audit support outsourcing services.