Audit season approaches - is your finance function ready?

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Audit season approaches - is your finance function ready?

Audit season approaches - is your finance function ready?

08 December 2023

What would it be like to be able to turn on the tap whenever you needed additional resource, and turn it off again once the pressure has eased?

At this time of year, finance leaders and their teams will be working extremely hard in preparation for what can often be the most stressful period in the financial year: audit season.

Most CFOs agree that the insights and recommendations that surface from a robust, well-organised audit process can be incredibly valuable. However, the considerable pressure that the process places on the finance function — and the potential damage to team wellbeing caused by the increased burdens — is something that many finance leaders would gladly look to mitigate if they could.

In addition to maintaining business as usual and ensuring day-to-day duties continue in order to keep the business’ wheels turning, CFOs and their teams also have to contend with a considerable number of challenging questions from a team of audit professionals. The process requires complex analysis, explanation and instruction, resulting in considerably longer hours and increased pressure placed on teams.

Strategic Resourcing Solutions — adding value, relieving pressure.

We’ve designed Strategic Resourcing Solutions (SRS) to help organisations easily navigate this challenge.

Businesses approaching periods of stressful, burdensome accounting and reporting deadlines — like Audit season and year-end reporting — can leverage one or more of our BDO accounting and taxation professionals, from across our national outsourcing team. The service is designed to be flexible, enabling you to take on additional resource for however long you require, without long recruitment lead times, or the potential risk to quality that might come from accessing the temporary market.

“We’ve listened to what our SRS clients want and developed a responsive service, rather than trying to shoehorn a diluted solution. Ultimately, our SRS clients value BDO’s culture and our people have a reputation for excellence in the market. This is what SRS is all about: providing unfiltered access to high-performing professionals.”

Gareth Lynton Jones
National Head of SRS

By seconding our highly qualified professionals into your finance function, we can support you as you take on whatever challenges you’re faced with:

IFRS, UK GAAP and other accounting frameworks
Preparing year-end statutory accounts
Completion and review of month-end close procedures

We’re already delivering excellent results and receiving fantastic feedback from our SRS clients:

Our SRS team supported management with their year-end audit and statutory accounts production process. The support was required due to resource constraints within the organisation and the deadline imposed by the auditor.

During an initial five-week secondment period, our SRS consultant worked across the finance team, reporting to the Head of Accounting and Control. The secondment started out at the organisation’s premise for an initial induction period before settling into a period of remote working. This worked well for the organisation as it meant they were able to meet our consultant in person, complete any mandatory training and ensure that the IT was fully operational. During the project, our consultant produced reconciliations for the year end packs, dealt with audit queries, assisted with the financial reporting and day-to-day management. Our consultant acted as a central liaison between multiple stakeholders and also by working autonomously; this allowed the Head of Accounting and Control to focus on their other responsibilities. The secondment period was extended for a further three weeks to ensure continuing support for subsequent audit queries and continued working on the financial reporting aspects of the project. This entailed another site visit to ensure that there was effective communication and that the project was closed out efficiently. The Head of Accounting and Control was very pleased with the outcome of the secondment and provided the following feedback:

“I was pleased with the support that the SRS team were able to provide. We had short term resourcing constraints and the BDO SRS solution was exactly what we were looking for in order to support us through the year end process. The BDO consultant carried out their work to a high standard and was able to deal with many of the detailed requests and questions that arose during the audit process”.

We were engaged to provide ad hoc accounting support in relation to a one-off management reporting project. This project was time sensitive and challenging from the organisation’s internal resourcing capabilities, so we were engaged to help meet the imposed deadline.

The team was led by Gareth Lynton Jones, who coordinated the take-on process, enabling the secondee to begin her secondment within just two weeks of the initial discussion.

During an initial six-week secondment period, our consultant worked directly with the financial reporting team, reporting to the Projects and Technical Accounting Senior Manager. She was given autonomy to complete the project and in order to do this utilised the SAP accounting system and engaged with various sub-teams across the internal finance function, including the capital accountants.

We completed the project ahead of initial expectations, and as a result the SRS client re-deployed her to help with the preparation of statutory accounts for several of their subsidiary legal entities, which had complex intercompany structures and financing arrangements.

The secondment period was extended for a further two weeks so that our consultant could continue to support the financial reporting team with this additional piece of work. The Projects and Technical Accounting Senior Manager was very pleased with the outcome of the secondment and provided the following feedback:

“The team and I were very pleased with the accounting support that the SRS team provided. Their consultant had a very positive attitude and was able to successfully deliver both the ad hoc management reporting work and then some statutory accounts preparation work — both were delivered to a high standard.

In relation to the overall engagement, I’d like to thank the team for the speed of your response to our initial request and ability to promptly provide the support we required”.

How can we help?

Whether you’re looking to raise funding; you’ve become subject to more onerous reporting requirements due to changes in accounting frameworks or group structure; or you are experiencing high growth and need additional support while building the right team for the long term, we would love to help.

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