Increasing firm efficiency
The implementation year with CCH ProSystem fx Knowledge Coach requires up-front planning to set up an efficient audit process that will increase realizations in subsequent years. Working with a Wolters Kluwer consultant helped Howell Straczek create the right processes to harness the best possible efficiency gains.
The firm took advantage of Wolters Kluwer’s Knowledge Coach training programs for their staff and, to ensure the training remained fresh on their minds, scheduled it to coincide closely with when they began working on engagements. Howell recommends this approach to other firms implementing Knowledge Coach and advises them to focus most on audit processes because they will find Knowledge Coach’s “compilation review very smooth and easy to use.”
Based on their Wolters Kluwer consultant’s recommendation, the firm initially created a model set of workpapers for each type of typical engagement. Those served as templates and made starting the first engagement with a new client much faster. Additionally, senior auditors went through the first five audits to ensure processes and templates worked as envisioned.
“It becomes a replication process once you have your set documentation. Then you decide how you’re going to utilize it, because there is some liberty about how you use these things.”
In year two with CCH ProSystem fx Knowledge Coach, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced the firm into fully remote audits. Having survived that, Howell now expects to see significant improvements in both realization and productivity. “It’s worked better than I hoped for on the year-to-year rollover, what’s being preserved, and taking on an engagement that’s very similar to, or the same as another. Once staff have become familiar with the documentation and the processes, it is easy for them to follow something that’s already been done.”
Improving audit quality
In addition to increased efficiency, the firm selected CCH ProSystem fx Knowledge Coach because its risk-based methodology ensures high audit quality by combining industry-specific guidance with a powerful and dynamic audit workflow engine. Howell Straczek auditors are guided through the entire audit, from planning to final sign-off. Knowledge Coach tailors the audit program based on each client’s characteristics. It then directly links identified risks with audit steps, flows information throughout workpapers, and monitors the engagement for completeness and compliance — all while allowing the auditor to exercise professional judgment.
With Knowledge Coach, the management team documented their internal workflow and standardized their process into four steps. Auditors must complete some documents before the planning meeting, and other workpapers after the meeting, with Knowledge Coach helping them create the audit program. Howell says staff tell him the process is “super helpful” because it provides a roadmap of the generally accepted best practices for completing an audit. Knowledge Coach also prevents “backward auditing,” where an auditor completes an audit and then creates the documentation at the end.
“We find less trained staff tend to jump around, or they’ll try to do everything at the end of the engagement. With the structure of Knowledge Coach and the different workpapers, it forces the completion of a section before you proceed to another section. And that’s extremely helpful in increasing efficiency and improving audit quality.”
