June 2021

4 steps to improve risk management

September 22, 2024June 30, 2021 by Benjamin Wyrick

Risk management is a broad and overarching term. It reaches to and beyond finance, touching every aspect of an enterprise’s operations. Especially for enterprises, the intermingling of all risk-related activities across an organization is important not only to understand, but to build management strategies around.

This methodology is known as enterprise risk management (ERM):

“ERM is a process, effected by an entity’s board of directors, management and other personnel, applied in strategy setting and across the enterprise, designed to identify potential events that may affect the entity, and manage risk to be within its risk appetite, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of entity objectives.”

Therefore, a holistic approach to risk management is considered to be the standard for risk officers and other members of the executive team.

In this article, we’re listing five ways that businesses can improve their financial reporting and controls risk by creating a plan of action to integrate into their larger ERM processes.

1. Understand the breadth and importance of risk management

As mentioned, risk management is an umbrella term that essentially identifies potential and actual risk and empowers a business with the necessary tools to adequately identify and deal with potential risks such as fraud, material misstatement, and more.

Fraud is a major challenge for most enterprises. COVID-19 proved this to be extraordinarily true. A survey carried out by LIMRA showed that 42% of its respondents had already experienced increases in attempted fraud since the pandemic began.

As noted by the Corporate Finance Institute, assessment and management of risks is the best way to prepare any enterprise for circumstances that may get in the way of progress and growth. When a business evaluates its plan for handling potential threats and then develops those structures to address them, it will inevitably create risk tolerant processes that future-proof the organization. An in-depth risk management plan is also a sign to investors and higher-level stakeholders of the stability of your organization.

In addition, progressive risk management ensures risks of a high priority are dealt with as aggressively as possible. Management will thus have the necessary information that they can use to make informed decisions and ensure that the business remains profitable which, believe it or not, is also important to stakeholders.

2. Decide how to manage risk

There are many ways to manage financial risk, and they can be best summarized using the 4Ts model; transfer, treat, terminate and tolerate.

Risk transfer means to assign an individual, group, or third party to be responsible for the risk. This method absolves the transferer of the risk implications, while compensating the person or entity receiving the risk for taking it on. More often than not, transferring risk simply means getting insurance; for example, an enterprise may work with a commercial insurance entity to offload potential financial risk for themselves, their stakeholders, and investors.

Treating risk is the next layer to consider in a case of financial risk in cases where the risk cannot be offloaded through insurance or other means. This is done by performing actions that reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring or minimizing its impact before it inevitably occurs. The best way to treat risk is to ensure that your team is equipped to predict and handle these risks as they come up. Training your team is vital.

The next method to manage risk is through terminating. Just like with treating risk, terminating risk is achieved by altering processes or practices to eliminate the risk completely. This could mean removing the process or area that is causing actual or potential risk to occur, as well.

The final category is tolerating risk. This step is part of the overall risk management process, as organizations determine the level of risk that they are willing to accept in any given situation or area. When it comes to finances, an organization must consider the amount of financial loss they are willing to risk to perform any number of activities.

These steps and processes can be applied to risk management in a similar manner. However, the detection and investigation of individual financial risk events is much more specific and technical, requiring the expertise of auditors and accountants.

3. Employ tools, automate risk management

Enterprise risk management tools now go beyond traditional spreadsheet-based software. According to McKinsey & Co., 66% of enterprises were piloting or using automation technology in 2020, with predicted increases to come.

Here are two key areas companies are exploring in 2021:

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) — This technology provides rules to “bots” which mimic simple, repetitive processes that humans often do. This could mean automating the compilation, download, and circulation of an ERM-related report. However, some other highly popular use-cases are onboarding, third-party screening, due diligence, and compliance monitoring. Upon implementing this technology, businesses report reduction of input errors, less human handling of sensitive information, and faster input and processing for overall time savings. Additionally, Gartner reports that “88% of corporate controllers expect to implement RPA in 2021.”

Risk Discovery Artificial Intelligence (RD AI) — According to research conducted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), one of their biggest concerns as the audit industry develops is “over-auditing” due to lack of understanding of company risks. MindBridge’s RD AI platform finds potential risk across 100% of financial data, and explains these findings in a transparent way. The ensemble AI engine finds potential risks with 10x the effectiveness of rules-based tools, and at over 2000x the speed of manual entry. An ERM framework with deep accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness gains can be enhanced by the 4Ts in the figure below:

Flow chart depicting the combination of the ERM process and the 4 T's of risk management. — Figure: ERM enhanced by the 4Ts model

4. Review risk management processes often

The final and most important way to improve your risk management is to review continuously. Meaning, check in on your risk management processes as often as you can. Set up a schedule of monthly, quarterly, or even yearly reviews.

Even the strongest risk management processes are at the mercy of ever-changing external and internal factors.

An effective risk management plan will implement an ongoing basis to accommodate these changes, ensuring that it continues to be as effective as possible.

For example, the Enterprise RIsk Resilient EcoSystem, a framework designed to incorporate the needs of larger organizations, is a testament to the need for an evolving mindset regarding risk management.

According to Jonathan Marks of Baker Tilly, the 8th largest accounting firm in the United States,

“The Enterprise Risk Resilient EcoSystem is more complete than other published frameworks and is more reflective of the current state of “our modern world” and where we need to focus. Why? Regulators are expecting organizations to be using a data driven audit process and using the results or feedback to continually enhance their compliance program.”

He continues:

“This means organizations should be strongly considering adding technology like MindBridge to the equation. It also means that if compliance, audit, and the general counsel are not working harmoniously there is a possibility risks will not be properly addressed increasing the likelihood of fraud.”

To learn how you can implement MindBridge into your risk management process, or to learn more about the MindBridge Audit Approach, click here.

For more articles like this one, visit the MindBridge blog.

How to prepare accounting students for an evolving industry

May 24, 2022June 15, 2021 by Jennifer MacIntosh

Abstract imagery of growth, development, evolution, education, and the future.

Preparing for an accounting career is much more complex than you may think.

Once upon a time, our grade school teachers drilled into us that we wouldn’t always have calculators in our hands to help tackle the world’s everyday math problems. Little did they know that our smartphones would be cleverly fitted with a default calculator app, perfectly for the palms of our hands.

In the latest acknowledgement of this phenomenon, it seems that today’s accountants are facing a similar issue – the industry is moving too quickly for educators to catch up, and to prepare their students properly for a shifting accounting career.

Which begs the question, is it time to update the curriculum?

Changes for the 21st century

Technological advancements: Accounting, audit, and beyond

A lot has changed since the last generation of accountants began their careers, and the consensus among them is that they are looking for today’s graduates to be agile, flexible, and adaptable with whatever technologies are thrown their way.

Whether it be for spreadsheets, tax preparation, research software, communication, and data analytics — today’s professional accountants use technology constantly.

A learned profession like accounting requires years of study, licenses, and a mindset that recognizes the need for continuous learning. In an article for CPA Journal, Stephanie M. Bryant, the Executive Vice President and Chief Accreditation Officer at the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International, writes about the large skills gap she experienced when she began her first professional accounting job: “It was my job to be an expert,” she writes. “The difference between making a grade in a class and working on a real client issue was quite a wake-up call for me.”

“It was my job to be an expert,” she writes. “The difference between making a grade in a class and working on a real client issue was quite a wake-up call for me.”

Years later, she said, the skills gap has persisted, with the theory portions being extensive in the curriculum while major gaps related to the currency and relevance of actual accounting practices persist. In particular, a student’s ability to synthesize and apply information critically — with or without the use of ever-changing technology. “It is essential that students develop technological agility and a growth mindset to be successful in today’s work environment.”

Bridging the gap: Theory vs reality

When AACSB-accreditation was introduced for business programs, it helped establish a standard of quality that ensured the curriculums met the needs found in professional settings. But still, gaps persisted.

According to the same CPA Journal article, in 2018, a task force of 19 highly respected accounting educators and accounting practitioners—including leaders from the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), the AICPA, and public accounting—worked for almost 20 months to develop updated accounting standards that would bridge the gap between academic and workforce expectations for new accounting graduates.

It was determined that, since accounting is a rapidly changing field, schools intend to prepare students for an accounting career it must ensure their content is reflective of the work new graduates will be expected to do by reviewing their courses and curriculum regularly.

In an article from CFODive, Paul Clancy, Senior visiting lecturer of finance at Cornell University spoke to the changes, addressing that the fundamental qualities to succeed are much the same; strong analytical skills, critical thinking skills, perseverance, integrity and teamwork. He noted that “these skills, many of which are developed at your university or college, can continue to be honed throughout life.”

An accounting career in our virtual world

A new challenge that today and tomorrow’s accountants must face is our virtual reality. No, not video games. Remote accounting and audit work has created new obstacles for today’s financial professionals that the next generation need to prepare for.

As much as we’re all looking forward to getting “back to normal,” many doubt that fully remote or hybrid financial work is going anywhere.

In light of this, educators must stress the importance of remote work and learning by introducing engaging tools and platforms for their students. We’ve all taken a class from home that we’ve written off as “too easy,” or “not worth our time.” But, given the not-so-distant future of physically-distant accounting, it’s time for students and educators to take things more seriously.

For many accountants, searching for tools that enable and enhance remote work has been crucial. Continuing to thrive outside of the office requires a different mindset, approach, and specific tools. Tools that utilize artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more automation-based technologies are making their way into tech stacks around the world.

But, just because they can make work more efficient, doesn’t make them simple to learn.

Technological agility and resilience

Moreover, agility has become a crucial skill for new finance teams. New graduates are beginning to recognize the importance for finance professionals to broaden their digital skills to include data analytics, risk management, cybersecurity and business modeling into their repertoire.

With that, the 2018 standards incorporated a theoretical shift to include technological agility as a new focus. Today’s accounting students must be able to adapt to new technologies quickly and continuously. Specifically, a focus on artificial intelligence and data analytics are of particular interest, but are frequently missing from university and college classrooms.

To find out more, we spoke with an active educator in a university accounting classroom.

Ann Vanstraelen, Full Professor of Accounting and Assurance Services and Chair of the Department Accounting Information Management (AIM) at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, had been searching for a way to better incorporate emerging technologies like AI into their curriculum.

She notes the traditional, “old way” of teaching accounting was to teach Excel skills and then assign a project that would reinforce those particular Excel skills. However, to be more effective and prepare students for real world circumstances, Vanstraelen notes, educators must expose students to a problem, ask them how best to address it, and require them to identify the different pathways to a solution.

This involves determining which current technologies and datasets to use, where the relevant sources are, and how they would integrate and synthesize facts to create a solution.

According to Vanstraelen, this mindset is paramount to success in the new age of accounting:

“Students hear about AI in the news and media quite extensively and want to learn more about it. By the time they graduate, students need to understand data analytics in a context beyond the textbook.”

Thankfully, Vanstraelen came across the Mindbridge University Program, which allowed her to integrate these topics into her existing curriculum at no extra cost. Plus, the students love it.

“They are positively surprised that they get to use it in such a hands-on fashion in our bachelor auditing and fraud detection course and appreciate that we’re letting them see how it actually works and how it’s used in real accounting practices.”

Like MindBridge, many organizations are beginning to explore the value of preparing the professionals of tomorrow with tools and knowledge today. The accounting world is rapidly evolving. Without the proper technology and knowledge, tomorrow’s accountants and auditors will graduate unprepared. We believe it is our duty to help educators bridge the gap between books and technology, theory and reality, education and an accounting career.

Read on to learn more about how the MindBridge University Alliance Program is helping students and educators get ahead.

How companies and firms are helping to bridge the gap from school to an accounting career

In 2018, MindBridge launched the University Alliance Program, an initiative designed to introduce the next generation of accountants and auditors to the power of artificial intelligence in augmenting the financial processes.

Since then, the University Alliance Program has been adopted by over 100 universities and colleges around the world. The curriculum offers educational materials with hands-on case studies and training, allowing students to learn and experience the power of artificial intelligence and data analytics in performing a financial analysis using MindBridge. With the material being incorporated into advanced audit, data analytics, accounting information systems, and fraud investigation courses.

Here’s an example of a classroom case study would look like:

	Finding fraud using AI
Background	Introduce students to the fictitious story of a construction company whose practices raised some red flags during audit planning A general ledger data set is provided with the case study
Task	Upload the provided data set into MindBridge and adjust the risk scoring engine as per instructions Identify potentially fraudulent transactions using a combination of AI-generated insights and professional judgement
Learning outcome	Students get insights into the applications of AI for audit Students get introduced to AI-human partnerships

Ryan Teeter, a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh has incorporated MindBridge into his graduate courses, and after finding success, wants to bridge the content into his undergraduate classes as well. “Being able to have something that is straightforward and shows the different techniques while also piquing the undergraduates interest toward data analysis, risk scoring, and applied statistics are areas that are very useful,” he said.

Professors from around the world are seeing the value of bringing AI and data analytics into their classrooms. To learn more about them, check out our case studies and customer stories.

For more information on how you can participate in the MindBridge University Alliance Program, or to apply, click here.

A fireside chat with Russ Jones: Shopify, AI, and the future of the CFO

September 15, 2024June 11, 2021 by Solon Angel

Russ Jones, former CFO of Shopify, chatting with Clubhouse group, Accounting and Finance Tech.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several years, you’re well aware that Shopify is one of the biggest IPO success stories in recent history. One of the individuals who was integral in taking Shopify public in May 2015 (and doing so successfully) is Russ Jones, former CFO of the Canadian tech giant from 2011 to 2018.

Recently, our very own founder hosted a virtual fireside chat with Russ.

Given Russ’s experience, it’s no surprise that he had a wealth of insightful information to share – from his time with Shopify and taking the company public, to how best to present financial information, and what the future holds for CFOs.

Below is an excerpt highlighting some of the key discussion points between Solon and Russ.

This interview transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Solon Angel: Russ, instead of me talking about you, why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about yourself?

Russ Jones: Sure. I’m a CPA, and I’ve been in the industry for 40 years now, so I’ve been around the block a little bit. My most recent full-time role was the CFO at Shopify, which I joined when the company was 50 employees and my team was a part-time accountant and the CEO’s mother-in-law. I took public in 2015, and then I positioned myself as the first official retiree from Shopify. I retired about three years ago, and since then I’ve been doing a number of board and advisory engagements.

Solon: What got you interested in finance in the first place?

Russ: I really credit it back to an excellent high school teacher who was a CPA and then decided to teach. I had that individual for both accounting and economics courses, and I did quite well in those. I found a lot of interest on the finance side, in numbers and thinking about businesses. The skills that you get opens up a number of doors. Because you have that finance skill set, you get involved in lots of the conversations, so it allows you to understand and add value to a business and partake in a lot of the decisions that get made.

Solon: When you mentioned Shopify and how early you joined them as CFO, at an early stage like that, did you know one day you would take them public? Did you see that this company could be a unicorn and Canada’s most valuable tech company?

Russ: Absolutely not. Although I had a number of signals that I used to sort of gauge opportunities. One of the things was that Shopify, as a Canadian company, had tier-one U.S. VC (venture capital). So, to me, that’s always a good indicator.

The other thing that attracted me was that the thing the company needed to get to the next level was a skill set I brought to the table. I was the grey-haired person in the room helping these young entrepreneurs to keep the company going and scaling.

The last thing I really liked was the business model; Shopify is a business where you get paid every day. Having been involved in companies that are doing enterprise software where at 11 o’clock on the last night of the quarter you don’t know whether you’re going to do five or 10 million dollars, it’s actually nice to have a company where you know you’re going to get some revenue every day. So, those three things are what attracted me .

Solon: Looking back, what was the biggest problem that you had dealing with financial operations at Shopify? What was your biggest success?

Russ: Right from day one that I joined Shopify – and this goes back to your question about did I think they would go public – obviously at that stage, no one knew, but my view is that you always build a company so that it could go public. On the scaling side, the biggest issue is how to introduce finance requirements and controls in a very entrepreneurial-type environment. you really want not to be seen as just a sort of police force of the company and always saying no. And so, about creative ways you can add value and assist in the company’s growth versus becoming an impediment there.

One of the things we always thought about at Shopify is in the same way that tech companies think about building up technical debt over time, how do you keep reducing managerial debt. A lot of companies, if something goes wrong, they’ll introduce a whole process to make sure it never happens again. I think a better approach is if someone has done something wrong, deal with that. Don’t introduce something that’s going to slow the company down.

The other point I would like to hammer home is that there is a difference between going public and being public. These days, it can be faster for a company to go public. But if you’re not ready to be public, that’s where a lot of the challenges arise. It’s important to think about both things – am I ready to go public, and am I ready to be public?

Telling the story of the numbers as CFO

Solon: In your time with Shopify, what was your experience with internal and external audits? Were they effective?

Russ: I think on external audit, to start down that path as soon as you’re ready is a good discipline to have. It also forces some operational best practices within the finance group and the company itself. In terms of the internal audit function, that is one you can start to add a little bit later in terms of the function itself, though the underlying controls you should start to put in place early on because trying to add them later is never the most effective way of doing it.

“As the finance leader, you need to be able to transition into the story of the numbers versus just the numbers themselves”

I think there are a couple of even more important things. As the finance leader, you need to be able to transition into the story of the numbers versus just the numbers themselves. I think that’s the real skill. The other thing to think about is what are the key metrics that I need to talk about to explain the company and how the company is run. But, on the flip-side, you also think about metrics you don’t want to talk about how do you answer questions around that.

An example is that, for Shopify, one of the metrics we didn’t want to talk about was the unit churn number. The reason for that is the role of Shopify as a platform is to allow lots of different merchants to try to start their business. The whole philosophy of making it easy to get up and running and making it very cost-effective was really ingrained into the company. The best way to keep your unit churn number down is not to have people join the platform who aren’t going to be successful, so you make it tougher for them to join. We never did talk about that externally, but every investor we met with would ask us that question. The way that we dealt with this is we had a revenue retention number of over 100%. So that way, we could explain that not every merchant is going to be successful, but the ones staying on the platform generate more revenue as a cohort month over month.

Solon: That is a very important point. I think a lot of people underestimate the power of positioning facts in a meaningful and valuable way for people to understand.

Russ: And as you move up in finance in terms of leadership roles, that ability to summarize and present the information is the real skill that gets developed over time. I see that as a tipping point for some people that, for example, would send the board Excel workbooks with just reams and reams of information, where really at that level you want one or two slides that tell the story and then you can answer questions.

The current and future role of the CFO

Solon: To what extent is a CFO involved in managing and mitigating risk for a company like Shopify? Does that role change when the organization gets larger?

Russ: I think risk is something that companies have from the very beginning. As bigger, you start, on both the finance and the legal sides, hiring people that spend a larger percentage of their time on just that. But is a cross-company type of thing. The high-level risks that a company deals with aren’t just financial risks or legal risks; they’re operational risks to a large degree. Understanding what those risks are and making sure that the right group is taking care of them is an important part of any fast-growing company.

“As data and machine learning and artificial intelligence become more important, I think there is a real role for finance to play”

Solon: When thinking of the finance industry at large and the role of CFOs and finance professionals, what concerns you the most today in what you see in the profession?

Russ: Yes, there are concerns, but I’m also excited about all of the opportunities out there. I think the one concern I have is with the industry right now and the number of SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) out there chasing companies. I do worry about companies that aren’t ready to go public starting to go public. But having said that, I do believe the finance role itself is expanding. As data and machine learning and artificial intelligence become more important, I think there is a real role for finance to play. So, overall, I would say I’m quite excited about it.

For more industry and thought provoking articles, visit our blog.

PCAOB makes room for technology: What does it mean for auditors?

May 24, 2022June 4, 2021 by John Colthart

An abstract image of growth and development to symbolize the adoption of new technologies and processes by storied firms and businesses.

In the last decade, technology has altered the ways in which we work and live. This has become increasingly true in the auditing profession.

According to Audit 2025: The future is now, a report released by KPMG and Forbes Insights that surveyed 200 CFOs, chief audit officers, chief tax officers and other financial executives, “the financial audit is poised for profound and rapid change.” That is, technology, combined with the expertise of today’s skilled auditor, allows audit professionals the opportunity to take a deeper look into an organization’s financial facets and provide more informed insights.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which regulates audits of publicly listed companies in the United States, recently released their own report, the Data and Technology Research Spotlight, which provides timely and relevant observations for auditors and stakeholders on the current and future of audits and technology-based tools being implemented in the industry.

It’s a mouthful, but essentially those responsible for regulating public audits in the United States are beginning to respond and acknowledge the transition we’ve been tracking (and encouraging) for a few years now: audit approaches using technology-based tools.

In the KPMG-Forbes report, 80% of respondents said that auditors should use bigger samples and more sophisticated technologies for data gathering and analysis. As technology blazes a trail through the audit space, more firms, organizations, and boards are taking notice.

Back to PCAOB report, it included an interesting statement on standards:

“PCAOB auditing standards do not preclude audit firms’ use of technology-based tools during an audit but our current standards do not explicitly encourage the use of such tools.”

While far from an endorsement, the PCAOB is the most recent major organization in the audit space to recognize the value of technology to increase the quality and efficiency of risk assessment and discovery.

In the same KPMG-Forbes report, however, 66% of respondents noted that the regulatory environment as their biggest challenge to enhancing the role of the auditor:

Source: KPMG & Forbes, Audit 2025: The future is now

In light of this report, and the reality of auditors and accountants, we asked ourselves, what does this mean for not only public companies, but organizations everywhere that are still on the fence about integrating potentially groundbreaking technologies into their audit work?

What does this mean for the audit industry?

The use of technology in audits is not new. Currently, many of the firms governed by the AICPA’s regulations and standards use technology in their audit approach to help augment their audits and enhance their judgement.

In the PCAOB report, the board considered that “guidance or changes to the standard may be needed, given the increasing prevalence of technology-based tools and the increasing availability and use of information from sources external to the company, both in financial reporting and as audit evidence.”

Beyond the admittance of such “technology-based tools” into public audit, this also speaks to the need to update standards and regulations that may inhibit their use. This is a major step for any regulator as, historically, audit standards have struggled to reconcile the advent of tools that may increase audit quality and efficiency with storied rules that attempt to define a “quality audit.”

The AICPA and ICAEW (covering North America and England & Wales, respectively) are two major regulatory and oversight bodies that are both grappling with their relationship to new and upcoming technological advancements in accounting. AICPA, through CPA.com, are planning for the introduction of DAS (the Dynamic Audit Solution), a solution that looks to combine technology and traditional audit to bridge the gap between innovation and regulation.

The PCAOB’s stance on technologically-augmented audits has given fintech innovators—and the firms that employ their technology—room to breathe, and to consider their relationship with the long-established audit industry.

So, where do we go from here?

The PCAOB’s Digital Technology Spotlight did more than open the door for technology in public audit, though: it outright listed the benefits of digitally-augmented risk assessment for auditors, firms, and businesses everywhere.

Reports conducted like the PCAOB and Audit 2025 show that technology-based audits reap huge benefits for firms and businesses. One potential benefit noted in the PCAOB report posits that these tools provide auditors with more persuasive evidence and confident findings in their risk assessments. This corresponds with a finding in the KPMG-Forbes report which showed that 62% of respondents want their auditor to articulate a clearer point of view on critical issues.

“62% of respondents want their auditor to articulate a clearer point of view on critical issues.”

Other benefits mentioned include automating certain aspects of repetitive or less complex audit procedures like reconciling account balances to the general ledger, vouching sales transactions to subsequent cash receipts, or preparing confirmations to be sent to third parties.

With the positives mounting, it’s understandable why organizations like the PCAOB felt it necessary to take a stand on this issue, and to formalize it into their standards (albeit off-handedly). However, it was also interesting to see the benefits specifically tied to public audit.

For example, in certain instances, the PCAOB Spotlight found that technology-based tools can aid auditors in analyzing data for indicators of management bias and the ability to provide auditors with information that could even suggest revisions to their planned audit response.

Many more benefits weren’t mentioned in the PCAOB Spotlight, however. Like what automating recurring tasks can allow auditors to do, such as expanding their skill set, and allowing them more time to communicate with clients and stakeholders. Nor did it mention the marketing potential for firms utilizing AI and other hot-button technologies, from a branding perspective.

Ultimately, this report is yet another example of the wider audit and accounting community recognizing the value of technology and embracing it. Given that, you may be wondering how you, your firm, or your business can begin to leverage technology for the betterment of your audits.

Thankfully, we have you covered.

How to integrate technology into your audits

With the addition of technology to your audit methodology also comes many changes to the way data is collected, analyzed and controlled in your firm, department, or business. This can seem daunting; the idea of implementing new policies and procedures and updating a methodology that has been so good to you for so long isn’t easy.

But this change is good.

As mentioned, utilizing technology in your audit assessment has taken a long road to regulatory acceptance; technology moved too quickly to be tested and proven against the manual means of gathering and analyzing data — the person behind the calculator punching numbers worked, it seemed. However, now that both private and public regulatory boards are starting to recognize the power that using technology-based tools have in conducting audits, there is no reason not to accept the future of audit: technology.

The MindBridge Audit Approach works to empower auditors and finance teams with AI-enabled technology to automate tedious processes and provide deeper insight into financial data.

From the planning, gathering, and analyzing stages, MindBridge’s technology allows users to analyze 100% of transactions to spot anomalies and potential risks faster. We appreciate the importance of understanding 100% of the process as well.

It’s like cooking: you need a great recipe to make a great meal. If you go in blind, you may not like what comes out of the oven.

Audits should be treated with the same transparency, thoroughness, and detail. Which is why the MindBridge Audit Approach requires an understanding of your business and objectives, conducting preliminary risk assessments, evaluating internal controls, and building a plan for successful audit engagements.

Our Audit Approach Briefing Paper offers you a practical introduction to revamping your audit approach using MindBridge.