Where Did the Auditors Go? A Guide to the Remote Audit

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Where did all the auditors go? Just as little as 6 months ago, company conference rooms, board rooms, and offices were full of auditors. Now, they are nowhere to be found.

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, auditors, as well as all other occupations, have been forced to change the way they perform audits. So the remote or virtual audit has boomed. Zoom, portals, and the electronic exchange of information have replaced face to face interviews and boxes and boxes of paper.

Fight the SALY Urge

Your audit team has been telling you SALY (Same As Last Year) for years. They preached consistency and predictability, which is why they use SALY. So what’s an organization to do when SALY simply won’t work? Do things differently. We know, we an auditor said to do things differently. It feels like it goes against everything we’ve said before. Hear us out, remote audits are not only possible, but they can be useful and, even more importantly, efficient.

Zoom (and other virtual meeting technology), secure portals, email, and cloud computing all make the transfer of audit workpapers, original supporting documentation, and overall communication possible without face to face interaction. (And while they won’t admit it most auditors have been doing at least a portion of this for years.) If you have been holding off on your audit, now its time to jump in, reinvent, improve your organization’s audit.

The Benefits of Virtual Audits

The benefits of remote audits are vast. The most obvious one, the auditors aren’t on-site. Let us explain. Having auditors on-site does create some level of disruption to the organization and your team. By moving to a virtual audit, as an organization, you don’t need to host the audit team for days interrupting your day to day operations. It also stops all the hush, hush, “the auditors are here” comments from your team.

The virtual audit is also more inherently more efficient. By not working on site, the audit team now has access to all the tools in their office: multiple monitors, high-speed internet, scanners, etc. It does not seem that big, but all of these tools can make the process more efficient, which leads to a faster turnaround time of your organization’s financial statements. Remote audits are not only time-efficient but also cost-efficient. The elimination of travel time reduces the direct expenses billed to your organization.

While virtual audits aren’t new, they are a growing trend that is gaining traction within the accounting world, and one that DeLeon & Stang had embraced before the pandemic. Don’t let COVID be an excuse for why the audit didn’t happen. Instead, embrace remote audits and turn it into an opportunity for improvement.