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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
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Our people tell us that our global culture is one of the biggest attractions of a career with Grant Thornton.
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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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E-commerce strategies, sustainability measures and the outlook of retail in PH
24 Mar 2021A year earlier, at the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, the overall picture for global financial markets looked grim. Economies were left reeling from the impacts of the pandemic, with various industries recording significant decline in revenues. Several disruptions in supply chain processes as well as the imperative to prioritize a new work setup only added salt to the wound already sustained by businesses which struggled to stay afloat during the new normal.
With the introduction of mass vaccination programs in different countries across the globe, the market outlook began to look a bit rosy. The picture gradually became one depicting adaptability and resilience. The priority now for retail companies is not only to address weaknesses but capitalize on their strengths.
In the Philippines, apart from the services sector, the retail industry has taken a massive beating from the effects of the pandemic. A year ago, in March, mall operators recorded a 10-percent decline in their sales while fashion retailers in the country saw sales slide by 20 percent, according to a survey by the Philippine Retail Association. The retail industry has been in a major slump for more than two years and the onslaught of the pandemic only added to the downturn.
The pandemic has not only stirred a decrease in revenues. Earlier projections were made stating that the vacancy rate in the retail sector in Metro Manila is projected to have reached 14 percent last year, the same rate recorded during the Asian Financial Crisis according to property consulting firm Colliers International Philippines. The high vacancy rate is seen to push more retail spaces in Manila to be converted to co-working and data centers this year.
The overall landscape in retail across the country is now anticipated to deviate from the norm – smaller retail spaces within communities will proliferate while property experts look at more innovations in the conversion of mall spaces.
Cultivating a new strategy
This year is seen to be a year of ‘soft’ recovery for the retail sector. While physical stores will not re-open their doors completely in the coming months, there is still hope that through measures integrating sustainability and building resiliency, there will indeed be recovery. This recovery is seen to start as businesses strengthen their omni-channel sales approach that can provide integrated customer service. This strategy can be used to adapt to changing consumer behavior, as they shift to a mix of online and in-store purchases.
Having an omni-channel strategy is clearly not enough. Aside from boosting online presence, there must be a ramp-up in pickup and delivery services. Retailers should back these services with a more open mindset as in the end, the key is in listening to customers’ needs and wants and catering to their demands through viable channels. Shopping centers, for example, will not go out of style anytime soon. However, these facilities will have to be more inventive in their operations to keep up with the effects of the pandemic.
Fostering resiliency and sustainability
When the government imposed lockdowns in various key areas in the country, retailers were left at a slump in thinking of innovative ways to operate. The situation may have spelled well for e-commerce businesses but for traditional retailers, the situation had been difficult. Pre-pandemic, e-commerce spending made up 2 percent of overall total retail spending but halfway through 2020, more Filipinos were recorded to have made e-commerce purchases.
For retail businesses to stay afloat, beefing up resiliency and sustainability measures is of value. Drive-through retail options can be improved, as well as personal shopper services – measures that form part of a bigger operational resiliency framework that can help improve businesses.
Recent reports show that the new mindset that consumers have cultivated due to the pandemic, including doing their purchases online, will certainly subsist even as government-imposed restrictions ease. The trick then for retail companies is to continue improving their e-commerce and omni-channel strategies in anticipation of more changes in consumer demand.
The new normal may have stirred up various changes in the way retail businesses operate but the future scenario need not be as grim as we expect. In the end, the ultimate saving grace must come from retailers’ initiatives. Retail business leaders must go beyond the unexpected and invest on innovative product developments to meet consumer demands and thrive post-pandemic.
JJ Vicedo is a Senior Manager 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 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 anton.ng@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 March 2021