Streamlining Audit Process for Improved Customer Service with IoT
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Fraud Detection
- Time Sensitive Networking
About The Customer
Hungerford Vinton is an external audit firm that performs different types of audits for its clients, including T&E audits, audits of governmental systems, and recovery audits. The firm is specialized in accessing and extracting data from historical records and legacy systems, which are prevalent in government systems. They aim to deliver outstanding service to their clients, and their reputation for excellent service and strategic counsel results in greater client retention and increased new business opportunities. The firm was looking for a solution to streamline their audit process, reduce unbillable hours, and increase their revenues.
The Challenge
Hungerford Vinton, an external audit firm, was facing a common challenge in the auditing industry. The data they received from clients was difficult to work with, existed in a myriad of formats, and was generated by various types of accounting and financial packages. This resulted in more time, often unbillable, spent on extracting and analyzing the data needed for the actual audit. The firm also had to access and extract data from historical records and legacy systems, which are prevalent in government systems, a specialty of this firm. Additionally, they had to combine data from multiple companies for a single audit. Each client audit was unique, making audit data preparation a nearly insurmountable challenge. The firm wanted to significantly reduce the hours spent on data gathering and conversion, which could sometimes be as much as 15 hours per audit, some of which could not be billed back to the clients.
The Solution
The firm adopted Altair® Monarch®, a data preparation solution, to solve their data conversion problem. Monarch could quickly and easily extract specific data from clients’ PDFs, flat files, and application-generated reports. It also enabled manipulating the same data for multiple views, allowing the auditors to perform more comprehensive audits. The firm standardized on the Datawatch Platform, allowing all its auditors to use repeatable processes and report models to easily and effectively transform audit data. This standardization ensured the quality and consistency of the firm’s audits and made it very easy for the audit teams to work with new clients. With Monarch, the audit firm reduced the time spent on audit data prep from 15 hours to as little as 2 minutes, a 99% time savings, which translates into thousands of dollars saved per audit.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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