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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.
MANILA, Philippines — He did not always want to be an accountant. “Not really,” says Romualdo “Boyet” Murcia III, a partner in the Audit and Assurance Division of P&A Grant Thornton, one of the leading audit, tax, advisory and outsourcing firms in the country. “In school, I was quite good in math, but some people advised me that if I took up AB Mathematics, the opportunity to get a job was not that high. But there’s a lot of job opportunities for an accountant. ”
He earned his bachelor’s degree in Accountancy, graduating magna cum laude at the Divine Word College in Tagbilaran in 1997.
“Since my first year, I showed good grades, and I really loved the challenge,” Boyet recalls. “Our school gave an incentive: if your grade is 1.2 and you maintain it, then you have free tuition. My desire at that time was to meet that requirement.”
Boyet grew up in Cabilao Island, in the town of Loon, around 30 kilometers from the capital, Tagbilaran, in Bohol. His father was a fisherman, which was typical on the island.
“It was quite a challenge,” Boyet relates. “My mother was a simple housewife, taking care of my father, my brother and me.”
Immediately after graduation from college, he took the CPA board exam, which he topped in October 1997. “My aim at that time was not really to top but just to pass the CPA board exam, because it’s quite expensive and I felt that if I failed on my first try, I wouldn’t be able to afford to take it again unless I worked first and saved the money.”
Topping the CPA board exam attracted a number of auditing firms that wanted him to join their firm. “One of the reasons I selected P&A was because somehow I could relate to them, in the sense that P&A also came from humble beginnings. They started with just seven people, but when I joined them in 1997, they had grown to almost 500,” Boyet relates. “I also saw the passion in P&A in terms of excellence and continuing professional development. In our occupation, you have to keep updated. You need to continuously excel.”
He started as a junior accountant and worked his way up the ranks. “I am one of the homegrown partners here.” He started his career in P&A and never worked elsewhere. He earned his master‘s in Business Administration degree from the AIM in 2004. In 2011, he completed the Pacific Rim Bankers Program at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. In 2012, Boyet was honored as Most Outstanding CPA in Public Practice by the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
His client portfolio is heavy in financial institutions, banks, insurance, and stock brokerage. “There are a lot of challenges because most of these entities are quite active in transactions,” Boyet shares. “So you need a lot of collaboration with your client, understanding what is this prospective transaction, how it impacts the business, and what would be the proper accounting treatment. You have to consider and conform with the changing economic environment. The accounting standard has also changed a lot. In 2005, there were wholesale changes. It is now called the Philippine Standard on Auditing. ”
The auditor has to be vigilant. “Although the one who will pay our audit fee is the client, our mandate really is the public, because we submit audited financial statements to the SEC,” Boyet explains. “The typical set up in audit is, you have a partner, a manager in charge, and a field staff. But you rely heavily on your field staff because they are the ones interviewing, who initially see the documents and interpret what the documents are all about. And then it will be reviewed by the manager in charge. But most of these depend on the quality of the work of our field staff. That is why we make sure we really hire the best among the best. We also invest a lot in terms of training our new entrants before they go to the field.”
At the end of the day, the responsibility falls on the partner. “I am the one signing the report, so I need to be involved in the whole process. As prescribed by the auditing standard, there should be a heavy involvement by senior management, from planning to risk assessment, strategy formulation, to execution and reporting. We need to be updated. We need to review the working paper at different stages, which will help us identify if there are new issues we did not anticipate during the planning.”
He says what he likes most about the job is resolving the issues of the client. “I find a lot of satisfaction if the client appreciates our recommendations and the quality of work that we deliver,” Boyet says. “If the client is successful, maybe partly because they considered our recommendations, it is also a manifestation that we did a good job.”
The audit report needs to be released within 60 days after the close of the year. “It’s really a success story for us to be able to release the audit report within such a short time. Accounting is really an important part in business. Sometimes there’s a misconception on what is the role of the auditor. Some think that they just sign reports for the sake of compliance, because the report is required by the SEC,” Boyet remarks. “But our role really is to give confidence to the public, to the investors and to other users of that report, in terms of the true picture, the real status of the company. There is a requirement to ensure full disclosure on the financial statements, on the operations of the company. So our role is quite critical.”
He notices that start-ups and entrepreneurs are sometimes so focused on product development and marketing that they’re unaware of the actual financial state of the company.
“Maybe in their mind, the company has an income because they are able to sell their product, but when you do the accounting, you will see that there are losses. Maybe their pricing is not accurate because they are not able to capture all those costs. In addition to marketing and product development, you need to monitor and record your transactions, and ensure they are being accounted for properly and in a timely manner. Otherwise it will create a wrong impression: that you are earning, but actually, you are not. Sometimes, potential clients come to us when it’s too late. They don’t know how to reconstruct their records anymore. Accounting is not just for big corporations and old institutions. Every company needs to have not only an auditor but also an accountant.”
Around six years ago, Boyet learned to play golf. “The other partners encouraged me,” he relates. “Personally, I like the outdoors, the greens. Somehow it relaxes me.”
There is also the benefit of socializing with clients and meeting possible clients. Otherwise, he spends most of his leisure time with his family. He has two boys, Johann, 9 and Jaiden, 7, and a girl, Jasmine, 4. He met his wife, Jonnalyn, also a CPA, at P and A. She is now a fulltime housewife.
“We decided that she would take care of the kids,” Boyet says.
They play basketball, go swimming. They visit his parents on the small island in Bohol where he grew up. Certainly, the fisherman’s son has come a long way.
As published in Philippine Star, dated 07 May 2018