-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Tax compliance
We aim to minimize the impact of taxation, enabling you to maximize your potential savings and to expand your business.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Global culture
Our people tell us that our global culture is one of the biggest attractions of a career with Grant Thornton.
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
In the community
Many Grant Thornton member firms provide a range of inspirational and generous services to the communities they serve.
-
Fresh Graduates
Fresh Graduates
-
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.
-
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.
Last week seemed like a bad case of déjà vu with parts of Metro Manila being under water again, some 11 years ago after the last serious flood. TV stations broadcast images of people trapped on their roofs waiting for rescue, pets being rescued by their humans, and government resources stretched to the limit in responding to the needs of those devastated by the typhoon.
As if the COVID-19 pandemic were not enough to test our mettle, the typhoons wreaking havoc on parts of the country seemed designed to test just how resilient we really are.
Even so, life goes on. Businesses and citizens have found ways to adapt to new practices and policies. Without the new practices, their ability to get through this trying period is compromised. The same is true for government agencies. The strict quarantine rules at the start of the pandemic forced a lot of government employees to work from home. Even with the easing of quarantine, some government agencies were still operating with a skeleton force and alternative work arrangements. These resulted in delays to some government services or some taxpayer requests being left unattended.
Notably, most government agencies had e-filing and e-payment systems in place even before the lockdown. However, a lot of them do not have procedures allowing for online communication with taxpayers and applicants in lieu of face-to-face meetings.
Prior to the lockdown, taxpayers could go to government agencies and discuss their concerns with officers. In some cases, a phone call to a government agency yielded the needed information. However, with the health precautions in place at most government offices, face-to-face discussions and submissions of documents have not been allowed. Even a phone call is not an option as the handling examiner or case officer may not be in the office to answer the inquiry.
The inability to communicate with government officers handling an inquiry or application is immensely frustrating. In some cases, the application or request is not acted on because additional requirements were not communicated to the taxpayer or applicant in time. On the side of the applicant or taxpayer, there is always an element of uncertainty whether documents couriered or left in a drop box have, in fact, reached the handling officer.
Thus, it is encouraging to see that some government agencies have put systems and procedures in place to ensure effective communication with taxpayers or applicants despite the lockdown and alternative work arrangements. These systems assure us that the government is also keeping pace with the need to adapt to the new normal in ensuring that government services are not delayed.
For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) now requires the submission of official e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers by all entities under their jurisdiction. On the one hand, the SEC will also use such official contact details for sending orders, decisions, replies and other notices to the corporation, association, partnership or individual. On the other hand, the official e-mail addresses and phone numbers must be used by the corporations and associations for online filing and submission of letters, requests or other applications to the SEC.
The submission is required under Memorandum Circular No. 28-2020 posted on the SEC website on Oct. 27. The compliance deadline is not later than 60 days from the effectivity of the memorandum circular.
Likewise, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has made available the eAppointment system for large taxpayers who want to schedule an online/virtual meeting with revenue officials from the Large Taxpayers Service (LT Audit Divisions and LT Field Operations Division). While the system is available only for large taxpayers for now, we hope all other offices of the BIR will also discover the convenience of virtual meetings and use them as the default mode for meeting with taxpayers.
Of course, systems have to be in place to make virtual meetings with government officers viable. Most importantly, the government has to make a serious investment in capacitating their offices with fast and reliable internet connections. Every government employee dealing directly with applicants must have an official e-mail address through which applicants can directly communicate with them.
It is disappointing that some government employees do not even have official e-mail addresses and have to rely on their personal Yahoo or Gmail addresses in communicating with taxpayers and applicants. In some cases where they have official e-mail addresses, the restrictions on use do not allow for any sort of document to be sent as an attachment, making them virtually useless.
With the BIR recognizing virtual conferences as an acceptable mode of meeting with taxpayers, we hope other government agencies and local government units will follow. With business permit renewals due in January, taxpayers are expected to crowd the city halls to submit documents. There must be an efficient e-submission, e-payment and e-meeting system in place to allow taxpayers to efficiently renew their business permits and pay their taxes without having to queue.
Indeed, we are all forced to adapt, and the government must keep up with the changing modes of delivering services if they are to thrive in this new normal.
Let’s Talk Tax is a weekly newspaper column of P&A Grant Thornton that aims to keep the public informed of various developments in taxation. This article is not intended to be a substitute for competent professional advice.
Eleanor Lucas Roque is a principal of the Tax Advisory & Compliance division of P&A Grant Thornton, the Philippine member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd.
As published in BusinessWorld, dated 17 November 2020