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Audit approach overview
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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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Global culture
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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
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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.
Boards and their power: Setting the right culture
24 Feb 2021Occupational fraud happens more in private companies than their public counterparts. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2020 Report to the Nations said that 44 percent of reported frauds occurred in private companies, 26 percent in public companies, 9 percent in nonprofits, and 21 percent in government or other entities. These numbers indicate that having a board of directors and management team that prioritize fighting fraud is crucial.
Most organizations grow complacent with their internal controls that fraud actors can end up easily working around them. More interestingly, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants said that most of the major damaging fraud cases from the last 50 years were instigated by members of senior management – they circumvented and overrode seemingly efficient systems of internal control.
According to a five-year study on fraud schemes by The Center for Audit Quality and the Anti-Fraud Collaboration which Grant Thornton participated in, four themes emerged: The first is that the most common types of fraud are improper revenue recognition, reserves manipulation, inventory misstatement and impairment issues. The second is that improper revenue appears to be the most prevalent fraud scheme almost every year, and it was among the top two fraud schemes from 2014 through mid-2019. Third, the technology services sector is most commonly charged by the government as finance, energy, manufacturing and healthcare industries also experience frequent accounting and reporting issues. Last is that chief financial officers are the most commonly charged employees, followed by chief executive officers.
Role of the board
The board of directors and senior management must ensure that proper safeguards against fraud are in place. As fraud incidences historically increased during economic downturns, the board’s role is especially significant during these times. They must continue to adapt as fraudsters keep innovating new schemes.
Although boards are expected to be the main champions against fraud, minimizing risk requires participation from all sectors in the financial reporting ecosystem, which includes the board, management and finally, the external auditor. Some strategies being used in fighting fraud are exercising skepticism, focusing on high-risk areas and continuously conducting routine risk assessments. Timely and continuous fraud assessments must be done to address changes in risk environment as well as changes in company’s processes.
How the ecosystem works
When it comes to fraud, actions speak louder than words. This makes setting the tone from the top of the ecosystem (boards and senior management) incredibly crucial. This mindset should trickle down throughout the rest of the company, reaching middle management, internal controls and even the external auditor.
The board and senior management set the culture a company would follow. A culture that is well adapted to the current risk environment that the company is in will help minimize fraud risk or prevent fraud from happening in the company.
Practicing professional skepticism is also necessary. Boards must reiterate that management should circulate cybersecurity and vigilance reminders to employees, customers and stakeholders. Monitoring initiatives by the board should ensure that management constantly instructs employees to verify requests using alternative channels.
Moreover, boards must have a holistic view of internal controls, capturing the changes in the organization, especially new fraud risks that may arise. Internal controls must be adapting to changing work arrangements. Since remote working will most likely last a long time, companies must be ready to finetune protocols to improve internal controls.
Managing fraud
Companies should consider investing on fraud and cyberthreat intelligence tasked to monitor the dark web. This will help uncover information on the activities of fraudsters – the products they buy and sell, their techniques, and if possible, advance notices of future fraud risks.
Analytical tools can also be used by boards. Fraud-detecting technologies such as data matching, anomaly detection and identity analytics must be equipped by management and shared with the board. This can be done on top of data collection and governance. A more proactive data collection leads organizations to be effective in prevention, detection or mitigation of fraud to acceptable levels.
As fraud attempts continue to increase due to the changing business landscape, raising awareness about fraud risk and responsibility among boards, management, internal control and users of financial statements will be a step towards protecting business and its stakeholders.
Gio Belchez is a Managing Consultant of the Advisory Services Division of P&A Grant Thornton. P&A Grant Thornton is one of the leading audit, tax, advisory, and outsourcing firms in the Philippines with 22 Partners and more than 900 staff members. We’d like to hear from you! Tweet us: @GrantThorntonPH, like us on Facebook: P&A Grant Thornton, and email your comments to gio.belchez@ph.gt.com or pagrantthornton@ph.gt.com. For more information, visit our website: www.grantthornton.com.ph.
As published in The Manila Times, dated 24 February 2021