Is your company missing the potential value from financial audit?
by Kylene Casanova
Business leaders are missing out on potential value from financial audits, which can provide insight, identify inefficiencies or risks, help inform corporate best practices, while also delivering a valuable outside perspective, according to a study by Deloitte.
Opportunities to improve business performance
Almost three-quarters of c-suite executives and 91 per cent of audit committee members in the recent Deloitte Audit Value Survey said that audits of financial statements identify opportunities to improve business performance. According to the report, approximately half of the business leaders whose audits delivered information about market or industry insights, inefficiencies or risks said they would probably have missed this information if not for the audit.
Despite the value and insight provided by audits, a third of companies rarely or never leverage the information received from their financial statement audits. Meanwhile, those who do use and act on data from the audit all or most of the time indicate stronger growth than those that do so rarely or never. Deloitte's Adam Weissenberg said: “Audits that deliver sharp, tailored insights and illuminate industry trends can give boards and executives information they can use to help improve operations and performance.”
Many companies don't realise potential impact of audit
“Although the survey strongly indicates that many business leaders recognize the expansive value of today’s financial statement audits, many still do not realize its full potential impact,” said Deloitte chairman and CEO Joe Ucuzoglu.
Deloitte's table below shows what c-suite executives and audit committee members believe to be the most useful insights from an audit:
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