For all entities – whether you are a private company, a government agency or even just a start-up business, being able to file your taxes and have your finances in order according to your government's tax deadlines is of utmost importance.
Because of this, the term "busy season" has become widely accepted in the finance and accounting industry as the label for the months leading to the filing deadline of every entity’s audited financial statements and taxes.
It is called the busy season because your accounting team begins to collate your financial information for the entire fiscal year. Your team makes sure all your financial documents are in order as they begin to analyze your financial documents from every angle. This usually results in long hours and tight deadlines for the accounting team given that accuracy is of utmost importance during this preparation season.
For accounting and audit support firms who provide this kind of accounting support for companies with no in-house accounting team or have a team that needs additional support, this means one thing: you are in for long hours.
In the finance and accounting industry, the audit season is synonymous with long hours, tight deadlines, and countless revisions. Whether you are servicing a local entity or a company with multinational regulatory requirements and financial records, it is an accounting professional's obligation to make sure that the audit reports they create are completely accurate.
So, how can an accounting and audit firm cope during the busy season? With the right support.
As said earlier, accounting firms often brace themselves during the audit season – typically around January to April – as they put in place processes and workload re-arrangements that were planned earlier on in the year or the year prior, utilizing new accounting technology to help with the audit process and hiring seasonal outsourced support to help with the workload.
During this season, accounting professionals typically handle:
For audit and accounting firms whose client-base are extensive and span across several locations and industries, this means that during these months, their internal resources are stretched thin – requiring long hours and quick deadlines for accurate outputs, another reason why outsourcing becomes a strategic option for firms during this time.
While audit and audit support fall under finance and accounting services, audit support typically specializes in providing the necessary paperwork for compliance during audit engagements. This includes audit preparatory tasks and various audit-related work such as:
Whether you are preparing your financial documents and that of your clients’ with the help of an outsourced partner or just with your in-house team, the goal of audit preparation and the audit proper is simple: To be able to review your financial documents, create your audited financial statements and make sure all your finances are in order and compliant with regulatory requirements that are applicable to you and your client.
Throughout this blog, we have emphasized the need for accuracy during the audit season. To maintain the quality needed to achieve this accuracy and ensure timeliness in all outputs, many firms now turn to the outsourced audit support. With the audit season being a seasonal spike – with the workload and deadlines that come with it not applicable to the rest of the year, firms have found outsourced audit support to be more favorable than having to invest in training an in-house team with a year-round payroll that may not be utilized the rest of the year.
By collaborating with a team of offshore accountants, you are afforded immediate assistance from experts who are knowledgeable about the finance and accounting industry and the industries your clients are a part of.
Some of the benefits of having seasonal outsourced audit support are as follows:
An offshore audit support provider can easily help your team and your operations scale based on demand. During the audit season, you can onboard as many staff as you need with minimal training and adjustment required so that they can help with the increased workload. After the season, you can either scale down and ask your provider to lessen their support or allocate your already onboarded outsourced resources towards other core tasks.
Should you hire an accounting outsourcing service provider from an offshore location; you are set to enjoy their lower labor costs. For example, the Philippines – a trusted location for offshore finance and accounting professionals – has a significantly lower labor costs compared to countries such as the US, Canada or Australia. By utilizing offshore audit support, you can maintain the quality that your clients expect from you while getting significant cost savings in talent acquisition and retention.
For trusted offshore locations such as the Philippines – which is home to English-speaking finance and accounting professionals trained in international accounting standards such as GAAP and IFRS, you are tapping into professional global talent by outsourcing your audit needs. Outsourced finance and accounting professionals from this country are well-versed in handling a wide scope of support services for clients in various countries while also staying updated on the latest in the finance and accounting industry.
Having expert global talent as an extension of your team throughout your audit procedures adds value to your own internal accounting processes as they can help with the streamlining and optimizing of your operations while also handling the workload needed for the entirety of the audit season.
During the audit season, every moment counts. It is always best practice to have financial documents and reports ready as soon as possible so that it can be verified and run through the rest of your documents again and again before the deadline – ensuring that there are no errors in any way and during instances where errors and discrepancies are found, there is time to remedy and make sure the records reconcile with your statements.
With the time zone advantage of offshore audit support, you can ensure that there is always a team working on your audit-related tasks. Round-the-clock collaboration between your in-house and offshore team paves the way for faster audit completion, which is essential for accounting firms with overlapping client matters and deadlines.
Arguably, your pre-audit preparations can be considered as the most important part of the audit process. If the preparations are not done properly, it can easily result in inaccurate reports and financial statements that may cause you to miss deadlines or be tagged as non-compliant.
With an outsourced team, you can rely on their attention to detail and their expertise in the latest accounting technology --- which they can leverage --- to help prepare client accountings, compile supporting documents needed and reconcile your ledgers before the audit process even begins. This is the best practice as you are starting the process on a strong note, reducing the risk of error later and cutting down any bottlenecks that may occur during the review stage due to lack of preparation.
An important part of the audit is your client's working paper – this is considered as the documentation of your audit process: the preparation, the evidence that you have collated for your client, all of the paperwork you have that is related to the audit and later on, the findings. With this, your outsourced team can be in charge of your working paper throughout the process.
This saves you time and worry about having to come back to your working paper during every stage of the audit to be able to compile and document everything.
A big part of the time-consuming process that is associated with the busy audit season is document preparation and management. For a firm with several clients, collecting, organizing, and labeling hundreds of documents for each client can drain internal resources. A remote audit support team can manage file repositories, naming conventions, and version control with precision; overall streamlining and standardizing the process, ensuring accuracy throughout the documentation process.
This allows your in-house team to focus on the core tasks that they do for your client, ensuring business continuity and consistent quality of your services and service delivery processes.
Offshore audit support providers are well versed in audit concerns, requirements, and overall compliance for both internal audits and external audits. With this, as they assist you throughout the audit preparation process, they can offer a preliminary risk analysis for your client and help identify any discrepancies with their historical data. While this should not be considered a formal audit as you should still undergo the audit process, they do help you identify any risks prior to and amend them as needed – giving both you and your clients the benefit of informed decision-making.
Furthermore, your outsourced firms are trained to keep up with international standards (e.g., IFRS, GAAP) and can help cross-check financial statements for compliance issues, flagging areas for further review.
Provide your support team with detailed checklists and templates. The more precise your instructions, the more consistent the output.
Use collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or other project management platforms to ensure real-time updates with your outsourced accounting team. Quick access to your offshore team reduces delays and builds a smoother workflow.
Work with outsourcing providers who have stringent cybersecurity protocols and prioritize protecting your financial information along with client confidentiality the most. This is particularly critical when handling sensitive financial data.
Instead of switching providers every year, invest in building a long-term partnership with a reliable outsourcing finance and accounting provider. Over time, the team becomes more familiar with your systems and expectations, increasing efficiency.
As the finance and accounting industry evolves, outsourced finance and accounting support becomes a strategic option not just for companies who have not in-house capacity to perform finance and accounting functions, but for accounting and audit firms as well who are already established within the industry. Outsourced audit support now helps firms adopt accounting technology-centered process improvements and scalable strategies that allow them to handle increased workload and unique challenges that is brought upon by the constant technological evolution and constant regulatory developments that have become the new normal.
With rising expectations from clients and regulators alike, you can't afford to let operational bottlenecks slow you down. Because of this, investing in the right audit support partner is more than just a temporary solution to help you address the increased demand during the busy season. It’s a strategic move towards building a more efficient, resilient, and future-proof audit and accounting firm.
Let’s make your next busy season your most successful one yet. We have a wide expertise in handling the numbers of businesses across various industries and broad experience in helping firms with their audit needs. Contact us today and we'll help you find the right solution for you!
Download our Seasonal Audit Support for US Audit Firms whitepaper today and know how we can be your reliable outsourcing partner.