Business challenge
In the relatively small Botswanan market, the quality of an audit firm’s staff plays a big role in building its reputation and thus growing market share. However, as in many other regions, highly skilled staff are in short supply. At the same time, for various historical reasons, fees tend to be significantly lower than in neighbouring states. Another factor is the growing burden of regulatory compliance. While increased regulation creates an opportunity for Alliant CPA, it also increases risk as the number of standards proliferates, along with the penalties for non-compliance.
Taking all these into account, it was clear that Alliant CPA needed a solution that would enhance the productivity of its professional audit team members without increasing its overheads excessively. A specific problem was the use of spreadsheets, which meant a high level of time-consuming manual inputting and consequent inaccuracy, as well as issues of version control. “It was clear that we required a way to enable better collaboration across audit teams with centralised files to ensure a single version of the truth,” says Clive Zimunya, Partner at Alliant CPA. “Ideally, the new system would also make it easier for us to ensure compliance with the applicable regulations and make it easier to implement quality assurance.”
For Alliant CPA, the solution proved to be Caseware Audit International. Because it is cloud-based, the solution immediately solved the issue of version control and team collaboration, enabling colleagues to work on the same documents simultaneously. As a result, there is no longer a need to work on separate documents and then try to merge them later. Another benefit is that managers can see at a glance how the work is progressing, and likewise quality assurance teams make their assessments easily.
By effectively providing a single platform on which the audit process takes place, Caseware not only promotes effective collaboration across the team, it also increases efficiency by eliminating manual inputting. Caseware Cloud also makes it easy for Alliant CPA to work with external professionals on an ad-hoc basis, thus allowing it to access specific skills without taking on unnecessary overheads. Caseware templates aligned with the applicable regulatory requirements ensures maximum productivity and alignment with regulatory requirements.
“As our team becomes more proficient in the use of Caseware, I believe it will assist us in gaining greater efficiencies in the business and position us to expand our client base,” Mr Zimunya concludes.
The Solution
