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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
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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.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the general community quarantine, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) recently announced that mall-wide Christmas sales would be allowed this year in an effort to boost consumer spending and help our limping economy recover. Even with the huge 11.11 and 12.12 sales of top e-commerce platforms Lazada and Shopee, retailers must prepare for the expected surge in spending at both brick-and-mortar stores and shopping websites as Christmas approaches. Filipinos will be scrambling to buy gifts for their friends and loved ones, as well as food, outfits and other needs for their festivities.
So how can retailers prepare for the shopping frenzy? Observing physical distancing guidelines, preparing the physical store layout and ensuring cybersecurity on e-commerce sites are the top concerns that involve heavy cooperation between retailers and their customers. Besides these, retailers should also identify the opportunities involved with huge demand.
Types of Filipino shoppers amid the pandemic
According to a research by Nielsen Retail Intelligence, this year’s Christmas festivities will look very different for Filipinos, as their buying behavior has been altered, creating an unexpected state of flux in the retail sector. As it is crucial to know the characteristics of consumers and understand their spending behavior during the pandemic, Nielsen identified five Filipino consumer groups to help retailers adjust or improve their strategies.
The first group are the “constrained and restricted” consumers who experienced income loss because of the pandemic. They are less likely to shop for the holidays because of the many restrictions on mobility and social interaction. The second are the “constrained but free” consumers, who also experienced income loss and are likely to save money in time for the holidays. The third are the “cautious middle” consumers who were not heavily impacted financially, and are not limited by restrictions. The fourth are the “insulated but restricted” consumers whose income has not been affected by the pandemic, but the restrictions are impacting their celebration. And the last group are the “insulated but free” consumers who were not financially affected by Covid-19 at all.
Retailers must now restrategize and refresh their plans for this year’s Christmas sales according to these new consumer pandemic behaviors and characteristics. Retailers can use several strategies, including offering discounts and bundles, gifts with purchase, warranties, free or discounted shipping for bulk orders, to boost sales.
Reducing risk in-store
As the holidays draw near, retailers have been preparing for the influx of in-store customers. As early as the four weeks leading to Christmas, retailers are trying to flatten the demand spikes that accompany big, heavily advertised sales. By spreading holiday demand across those weeks, retailers would be able to effectively manage store and home shipments, reducing their risk of disappointing customers with delayed deliveries.
Despite the reduction of income, lots of people are still planning to spend money on reasonable, too-good-to-pass-up shopping deals. As the pandemic nears its first anniversary, people are looking for something to celebrate. Many will still brave the malls to shop for gifts, as they miss in-store shopping. However, consumers will still feel nervous about the coronavirus, so they are likely to shop in bulk and make fewer trips to stores.
Retailers must make sure their stores are equipped with IATF-EID-approved contact-tracing forms, hand sanitizer or alcohol dispensers, and temperature checks at the entrance.
The potential and risks of e-commerce
With Christmas a few weeks away, people are looking forward to shopping on December 12, indicating another change in the buying experience and behavior of Filipino consumers. Because of the many limited time offers, many customers have become impulse buyers. Shoppers ask themselves: “Is the price really worth its value?” “Do the products actually meet my needs?” “Will it create and provide me long-term values?” This challenges the retailer to deliver good-quality products that should match or even exceed customer expectations and satisfaction.
There is also the issue of cybersecurity as part of measures to protect consumers and their personal bank account and credit card details. Technology has allowed for e-commerce platforms to place premium protection on such sensitive information, but the risk of this leaking to malicious hackers still exist. E-commerce retailers would need to install monitoring software and systems equipped to raise alerts and perform real-time analysis on the possibility of data breaches. A security information and event management (tool should be preconfigured to the specific demands of the business.
This Christmas, retailers should be ready with their strategies for the rapidly evolving consumer. These must be tailor-fit to his or her current experiences and realities. The key to successfully running a retail business — any business — is, first and foremost, knowing the customer.
Endel Mata is a partner of the Audit and Assurance 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 24 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 pagrantthornton@ph.gt.com. For more information, visit www.grantthornton.com.ph.
As published in The Manila Times, dated 09 December 2020