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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.
Digital governance
05 Sep 2018My brother is an avid Star Wars fan. When asked why he loves the film franchise so much, he would tell us how amazing the futuristic space technology looks.
I remember a particular scene from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith that tickled my curiosity about whether it can happen in real life. In one of the scenes, Chewbacca and Tarfful remotely witnessed a hologram Jedi Council meeting wherein the Council discussed their strategy on how to end the Battle of Kashyyyk.
In the world of Star Wars, the Jedi Council consists of 12 of the wisest Jedi Masters, and is the highest governing body of the Jedi Order. If we translate that in an organizational setting, the Jedi Council can be the equivalent of the Board of Directors. Just like the Jedi Council meetings, discussions about matters concerning the organization are discussed in a board meeting.
Batas Pambansa Bilang 68, or the Corporation Code of the Philippines, allows corporations to specify the frequency of meetings of their Board of Directors. The corporation may specify in its by-laws that the regular meeting be held monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually. Regularly scheduled board meetings provide consistency and assurance that there will be a venue where matters of concern will be discussed.
Even on a monthly basis, however, the organization will have to wait for 30 days to discuss a matter of concern. According to 2017 research on the Director’s Perception of their Board’s Effectiveness, Size and Composition, Dynamics, and Internal Governance by the Harvard Business School, board meetings are conducted on an average of six times in a year or bimonthly.
For a dynamic organization, though, two months is a long time for an urgent concern to be discussed. Quickly and clearly making decisions about priorities, objectives, budgets, and resources make the difference between failure and success.
The evolution to the digital era has sped up the way an organization conducts business. Digitizing the governance process—i.e., changing from analog to digital form—will provide organizations flexibility to be responsive to changes and allows for faster and more effective communication.
Communication
The basic aspect of governance where digitization should be manifested is its communication to internal and external stakeholders. Digital governance provides an electronic means to which interactions, such as electronic memos, mobile communications, and telephone, video, or web conferencing with stakeholders are hosted.
Decision making is often impaired by the notion that everyone required to make a decision has to be in the same place at the same time. That is not true. Imagine a Board meeting where memos are emailed or even sent through SMS or messaging apps, the meetings are conducted virtually through online conferencing, and the minutes of meeting are all transmitted, signed, and approved through electronic signatures and correspondence.
Boards can even use cloud software tools such as instant messaging, video conferencing, Skype, or Google
Hangouts to agree if an issue warrants a face-to-face meeting. Recent advances in technology can pave way to augmented reality (AR) meetings using AR glasses and hologram meetings where a hologram of a person can be placed in another room using 3D cameras that capture an entire person’s movements and speech in real time.
In the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Revised Code of Corporate Governance of 2009, meetings through teleconferencing are allowed, provided they are conducted with the following requirements of SEC Memorandum Circular 15, Series of 2001, guidance on Board Meetings through teleconferencing or videoconferencing:
The Corporate Secretary should send out notices to all the directors in accordance with the by-laws of the company and inquire in the said notice whether the Directors will attend physically or through tele or video conferencing; and
The Director shall give notice of at least five days prior to the scheduled meeting to the Corporate Secretary. The Corporate Secretary shall be informed of the Director’s contact numbers and shall inform the Director concerned of the contact numbers they will call to join the meeting.
Transparency
It is important that the Board has easy access to corporate or financial information, giving the transparency needed to highlight questions needed to be answered. Rather than photocopy reports and appendices, consider sending PDFs or even a link to a cloud drive (such as Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive, Box, or DropBox) to distribute important documents.
Workflow
When it comes to digitizing your organization’s workflow, do not be limited by email correspondence. It can be tedious to manage. Instead, experiment with a digital kanban board or project management software that allows users to keep track of pending tasks.
An urgent change in policies and procedures due to a new law or regulation should not have to wait for two months for Board of Directors approval and implementation.
Collaboration
Sending documents, even electronic copies, back and forth can be cumbersome. To encourage collaboration, use your organization’s intranet or shared documents directory to keep track of changes as they occur.
Google Suite, Office 365, and other cloud services have the ability to set permissions to grant view, edit, and administrative access.
Governance should not be limited to the confines of the organization workspace. Being able to see and react to any issues as they arise, with people in place to make critical decisions that will remove these obstacles, will keep the organization moving.
Because strategic management manifests on a daily basis, decision makers should be able to provide support in real time.
For large enterprises and dynamic organizations, purely digital governance is a reality. But, who knows when even the smallest of enterprises conduct their Board meetings in Jedi Council fashion.
Lovely Charmaine Villamora-Dacanay is a Managing Consultant of Advisory 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. We’d like to hear from you! Tweet us: @PAGrantThornton, like us on Facebook: P&A Grant Thornton, and email your comments to Chams.villamora-dacanay@ph.gt.com or pagrantthornton.marketscomm@ph.gt.com. For more information, visit our website: www.grantthornton.com.ph.
As Published by The Manila Times dated 05 September 2018