The financial statement audit provides invaluable business insight of course. But increasingly, business leaders need and can benefit from assurance that goes beyond the traditional external audit.

Deciding which risks are worth taking is challenging enough, but if you are making decisions that rely on information, systems or processes that are inaccurate, ambiguous or quite simply unknown, risk management becomes risk exposure.

As auditors we can apply the same skills, rigor and robust challenges to many areas of your business that can be quantified and measured. Without the right level of assurance, it's difficult to know if your governance and risk management is right. This is as much about helping you to capitalize on new business opportunities, as it is about mitigating risk.

If we already conduct your financial statement audit, the insights and deep understanding we have about your business can be put to work quickly and efficiently. You will have already experienced our cooperative approach and ability to operate effectively with your business. Our blend of technical and sector experience means that even if we haven't worked with you before, rest assured, we can get to work quickly and add value.

The assurance needs of our clients are sometimes unique. Almost always they can benefit from our ability to draw upon the right mix of skills, from our tax, sustainability, management consulting, and forensics experts, through to our transaction and restructuring professionals. Some questions you might consider include:

• Are you in need of more assurance before making an acquisition, or do you need to reduce the risk of capital loss or business failure after an acquisition?
• Are you comfortable that your internal controls are responding adequately to increased scrutiny, regulation, company/group size or business risks?
• Are you involved in the restructuring of a business (mergers, spin-offs, liquidations) and do you need support in the finance and accounting area?
• Have you made a business acquisition and do you need to harmonize accounting policies and integrate financial reporting of the acquired company?
• Do you have a difficult technical accounting issue which you cannot solve in-house?
• Would greater assurance over the capture, processing or accounting of revenue help identify cash or profit generation opportunities or risk points for revenue losses and control deficiencies?
• Do you need greater assurance over your investment decisions for your bank, board of directors or shareholders, the quality of your data, or the robustness of your performance against budgets?
• Do you need greater assurance over processes, systems and controls capturing data to be submitted to regulators, or comfort over information and data to be submitted to regulators?
• Do your financing banks require independent assurance reporting over compliance with debt terms?
• Do you have temporarily limited resources within the finance function and would support from external finance and accounting specialists be useful?
• Do you need ethical assurance over your supply chain processes and controls to avoid reputational damage?
• If you report your sustainability performance in your annual report, or as a separate Corporate Social Responsibility report do you need an independent opinion for your key stakeholders? 

Contact us if you are seeking greater assurance.