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Audit approach overview
Our audit approach will allow our client's accounting personnel to make the maximum contribution to the audit effort without compromising their ongoing responsibilities
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Annual and short period audit
At P&A Grant Thornton, we provide annual and short period financial statement audit services that go beyond the normal expectations of our clients. We believe strongly that our best work comes from combining outstanding technical expertise, knowledge and ability with exceptional client-focused service.
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Review engagement
A review involves limited investigation with a narrower scope than an audit, and is undertaken for the purpose of providing limited assurance that the management’s representations are in accordance with identified financial reporting standards. Our professionals recognize that in order to conduct a quality financial statement review, it is important to look beyond the accounting entries to the underlying activities and operations that give rise to them.
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Other Related Services
We make it a point to keep our clients abreast of the developments and updates relating to the growing complexities in the accounting world. We offer seminars and trainings on audit- and tax-related matters, such as updates on Accounting Standards, new pronouncements and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issuances, as well as other developments that affect our clients’ businesses.
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Tax advisory
With our knowledge of tax laws and audit procedures, we help safeguard the substantive and procedural rights of taxpayers and prevent unwarranted assessments.
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Tax compliance
We aim to minimize the impact of taxation, enabling you to maximize your potential savings and to expand your business.
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Corporate services
For clients that want to do business in the Philippines, we assist in determining the appropriate and tax-efficient operating business or investment vehicle and structure to address the objectives of the investor, as well as related incorporation issues.
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Tax education and advocacy
Our advocacy work focuses on clarifying the interpretation of laws and regulations, suggesting measures to increasingly ease tax compliance, and protecting taxpayer’s rights.
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Business risk services
Our business risk services cover a wide range of solutions that assist you in identifying, addressing and monitoring risks in your business. Such solutions include external quality assessments of your Internal Audit activities' conformance with standards as well as evaluating its readiness for such an external assessment.
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Business consulting services
Our business consulting services are aimed at addressing concerns in your operations, processes and systems. Using our extensive knowledge of various industries, we can take a close look at your business processes as we create solutions that can help you mitigate risks to meet your objectives, promote efficiency, and beef up controls.
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Transaction services
Transaction advisory includes all of our services specifically directed at assisting in investment, mergers and acquisitions, and financing transactions between and among businesses, lenders and governments. Such services include, among others, due diligence reviews, project feasibility studies, financial modelling, model audits and valuation.
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Forensic advisory
Our forensic advisory services include assessing your vulnerability to fraud and identifying fraud risk factors, and recommending practical solutions to eliminate the gaps. We also provide investigative services to detect and quantify fraud and corruption and to trace assets and data that may have been lost in a fraud event.
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Cyber advisory
Our focus is to help you identify and manage the cyber risks you might be facing within your organization. Our team can provide detailed, actionable insight that incorporates industry best practices and standards to strengthen your cybersecurity position and help you make informed decisions.
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ProActive Hotline
Providing support in preventing and detecting fraud by creating a safe and secure whistleblowing system to promote integrity and honesty in the organisation.
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Accounting services
At P&A Grant Thornton, we handle accounting services for several companies from a wide range of industries. Our approach is highly flexible. You may opt to outsource all your accounting functions, or pass on to us choice activities.
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Staff augmentation services
We offer Staff Augmentation services where our staff, under the direction and supervision of the company’s officers, perform accounting and accounting-related work.
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Payroll Processing
Payroll processing services are provided by P&A Grant Thornton Outsourcing Inc. More and more companies are beginning to realize the benefits of outsourcing their noncore activities, and the first to be outsourced is usually the payroll function. Payroll is easy to carve out from the rest of the business since it is usually independent of the other activities or functions within the Accounting Department.
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Our values
Grant Thornton prides itself on being a values-driven organisation and we have more than 38,500 people in over 130 countries who are passionately committed to these values.
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Global culture
Our people tell us that our global culture is one of the biggest attractions of a career with Grant Thornton.
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Learning & development
At Grant Thornton we believe learning and development opportunities allow you to perform at your best every day. And when you are at your best, we are the best at serving our clients
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Global talent mobility
One of the biggest attractions of a career with Grant Thornton is the opportunity to work on cross-border projects all over the world.
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Diversity
Diversity helps us meet the demands of a changing world. We value the fact that our people come from all walks of life and that this diversity of experience and perspective makes our organisation stronger as a result.
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In the community
Many Grant Thornton member firms provide a range of inspirational and generous services to the communities they serve.
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Fresh Graduates
Fresh Graduates
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Students
Whether you are starting your career as a graduate or school leaver, P&A Grant Thornton can give you a flying start. We are ambitious. Take the fact that we’re the world’s fastest-growing global accountancy organisation. For our people, that means access to a global organisation and the chance to collaborate with more than 40,000 colleagues around the world. And potentially work in different countries and experience other cultures.
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Experienced hires
P&A Grant Thornton offers something you can't find anywhere else. This is the opportunity to develop your ideas and thinking while having your efforts recognised from day one. We value the skills and knowledge you bring to Grant Thornton as an experienced professional and look forward to supporting you as you grow you career with our organisation.
It’s normal to receive emails on updated terms of service from an online account, such as Facebook. In the past two months alone, I have received similar emails from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Airbnb, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Fitbit, Uber and Paypal. Getting one or two such emails may be a coincidence, but receiving that many is not. The surge in the number of emails from tech companies updating us on their privacy policies is also attention-getting: the normal legalese full of illegible descriptions of terms and conditions was replaced by a clear, easy-to-read style.
All of these are related to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that comes into effect next week.
The European Union’s (EU’s) new data protection law does not only cover all businesses operating within the EU, but also the companies that trade with EU-based businesses. For many of us, we may not think of individual European countries as significant business partners of the Philippines. However, as an economic bloc, the EU is in the Philippines’ top three largest trading partners for goods and services, even bigger than the United States.
The GDPR, therefore, is not something to be brushed aside as irrelevant, especially since the penalties for non-compliance can be as high as €20 million, or 4 percent of annual sales, whichever is higher.
The good news, though, is that companies complying with the Philippines’ Data Privacy Act (DPA) of 2012 have a very good chance of being ready for the GDPR, since the DPA is largely based on international data privacy frameworks such as the GDPR.
Like the DPA, the GDPR will introduce wide-ranging changes that require thorough understanding, internal stakeholder acceptance, and appropriate preparation and implementation across the whole business. In a recent publication for GDPR issued by Grant Thornton International, the following key changes were highlighted:
> Better rights for data subjects – The largest shift is that individuals will benefit from greatly enhanced rights, such as the right to object to certain types of profiling and automated decision-making. Consent requirements will also be more stringent. Consent must be explicit and affirmative, it must be given for a specific purpose, and it must be easy to retract. Individuals may also request that personal data be deleted or removed if there isn’t a persuasive reason for its continued processing.
> Increased accountability – Organizations will have far more responsibility and obligation. They will need to publish more detailed fair processing notices, informing individuals of their data protection rights, explaining how their information is being used, and specifying for how long. The new regulation also embeds the concept of privacy by design, which means that organizations must design data protection into new business processes and systems.
> Formal risk management processes – Organizations must formally identify emerging privacy risks, particularly those associated with new projects, or where there are significant data processing activities. They must also maintain registers of their processing activities and create internal inventories. For high-risk data processing activities, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) will be mandatory. It will also be compulsory to appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO).
> Significant sanctions – Penalties for noncompliance will rise considerably, up to €10 million, or 2 percent of annual sales (whichever is greater) for minor or technical breaches, and €20 million, or 4 percent of turnover for more serious operational failures. Investments in new tools to protect data have become relatively cheaper.
> Data processing requirements – The regulation also imposes new requirements on data processors, and includes elements that should be addressed contractually between data processors and data controllers.
Assuming that a Philippine company is already compliant with the DPA, there is still a need for continuous improvement to ensure sustained compliance with both the DPA and GDPR. Companies should develop a competent team or appoint a trusted advisor to assess the effectiveness of data protection efforts and perform GDPR and DPA audits. Data risk management should also be integrated into the overall risk management structure. Lastly, data protection training is expected to be a regular feature of both onboarding and annual training programs.
These measures may seem a lot, but they represent the price we have to pay to protect data.
Renan Piamonte is the Risk Management partner of P&A Grant Thornton. P&A Grant Thornton is one of the leading audit, tax, advisory, and outsourcing firms in the Philippines, with 21 partners and over 900 staff members. For comments, please email Renan.Piamonte@ph.gt.com or pagrantthornton.marketscomm@ph.gt.com. Visit our website: www.GrantThornton.com.ph; Twitter and Instagram: pagrantthornton, and FB: P&A Grant Thornton.
As published in The Manila Times, dated 16 May 2018