Thomson Reuters® Confirmation: audit technology that is flexible and scalable to your needs

Audit technologies are developing fast, with many new products entering the market each month. However, with more products on offer, the decision over which to choose only becomes trickier for audit practices, especially for those looking to grow in the future. To make the right choice, one key question a firm should consider is the scalability of a product or platform over time and across jurisdictions. 

One of the advantages of choosing Confirmation – the end-to-end digital confirmation platform – at any stage of the growth journey is the sheer number of banks integrated with the system. Confirmation is now connected to more than 4,000 banks and financial institutions across the globe, so even overseas banks can easily understand what UK auditors are asking for and provide confirmations more efficiently. 

James Berridge, Data Analytics Director at Saffery, says that his firm’s decision to choose Confirmation was to do with “the breadth of the banks that the system connected to” – particularly its pilot integration with Barclays in 2023 – as well as the overall speed of receiving confirmations. 

Most of Saffery’s bank confirmations now go through a superuser group with responsibility for using the Confirmation platform. As a result, the firm now has a very low rejection rate for confirmations, which Berridge attributes to the training Confirmation provided to those specalist users and general optimisation across its products. 

“API integrations mean we can scale up when necessary. That’s a good example of Confirmation being both flexible and scalable” 

James Berridge, Data Analytics Director, Saffery 

Customise Confirmation with APIs 

Saffery is looking to build on this success by stepping up its adoption of Confirmation’s API functionalities and thereby increasing the level of automation in its processes. “Instead of our teams having to log data, download it and put it on the audit file, APIs would enable us to download it automatically into our audit files,” he explains. 

The scalability and flexibility of the Confirmation platform is critical to a firm like Saffery, which has been growing consistently in recent years. “What you don't want is to find a platform that works for you when you're one size and then, when you’re growing quite quickly, suddenly finding that you're coming up against artificial barriers because the platform can't handle it,” Berridge says. 

The expansion of the Confirmation offering to include APIs reassures Berridge that “we can scale up when necessary” and that the platform can be used across all clients as the firm wins them. “That's a good example of Confirmation being both flexible and scalable,” he says. 

Streamline systems with Cloud Audit Suite 

Indeed, East Anglian firm Lovewell Blake, which chose the Confirmation platform for bank requests because of its speed, efficiency and security, is now looking to add a new cloud based audit working papers suite to its systems, “which will be another big step forward,” says partner Steven Scarlett. 

The move has been spurred by growing dissatisfaction with its current piecemeal approach to the audit process. The firm had been relying on a different interface to gather client information, which required files to be manually dragged into the firm’s electronic audit system in order to be stored and used. 

A modern cloud based solution, such as Confirmation’s integrated Cloud Audit Suite offering will introduce new efficiencies to Lovewell Blake as well as mitigating any risks when working with client data. “The way we see it, in the future, everything will flow through bank confirmations. Open banking information, and so on, will just come into the package. Everything will be integrated. So, it'll be a much more efficient, joined-up approach,” Scarlett says. 

This approach, he says, will reduce the scope for error in processes by minimising human intervention, leading to an improvement in audit quality as well as enabling employees to focus on more value-add services. “Everybody is finding it a challenge at the moment to recruit and retain good, experienced audit staff,” Scarlett explains. “Any tools that we can give them to makes their jobs more rewarding and more interesting has got to be a positive.” 

“In the future, everything will flow through bank confirmations. Everything will be integrated. It’ll be a much more efficient, joined-up approach” 

Steven Scarlett, Partner, Lovewell Blake 

Keeping pace with change 

Lovewell Blake’s clients include a variety of owner-managed businesses at the smaller end of the audit market as well as larger businesses. It meant the firm required “a package that really accommodates all of those different types of clients because the software needs to work from the client aspect as well as our aspect,” Scarlett explains. 

Responding to client needs is critical for practices of all sizes as the audit market continues to adapt and evolve at pace. Both Berridge and Scarlett say that new clients are increasingly inquiring about their audit process and how they use technology to support it. And, in order to ensure client confidence in their systems, it is essential to have efficient and secure forms of automation. 

As a result of changing client expectations and the fast pace of innovation in audit technology, firms should regularly reassess whether they have the right tools to meet their needs, Berridge says. And knowing that Confirmation’s suite of products provide a seamless audit process at whatever size or specialism assures Berridge and the wider Saffery’s team that when their requirements of technology grow and change, Confirmation will adapt with them.