Streamline your audits with approval automation: how ApprovalMax can help

@ApprovalMax

Konstantin Bredyuk, Director of Product, ApprovalMax

With roots in business process management and optimisation software development, Konstantin has undertaken hundreds of product implementations for ApprovalMax clients worldwide.

Konstantin has been advising numerous organisations on implementing automation, financial controls, and client collaboration capabilities using Xero-based trusted app stacks, with business profiles ranging from SMEs to large accounting and advisory practices.

pproval automation apps are changing business processes for financial approvals and businesses who are regularly audited.

Approval automation apps are designed to save time, streamline the approval process, and improve the overall efficiency of AP operations. By sending notifications and reminders to approvers, approval automation apps become valuable as it reduces the administrative workload for bookkeepers and accountants, freeing up time to focus on more important tasks.

If your client is regularly audited, you’ll want to make sure they have a comprehensive and organised way of making and logging their financial approvals. A huge bonus of using a cloudbased app is having an audit trail that’s automatically generated, as this means auditors get a clear understanding of the approval process. It’s also a win for your client as it helps ensure they stay compliant, while reducing their risk of fraudulent activities at the same time. During an audit, the ability to invite auditors to view workflows and audit trails with read-only access is helpful, as it streamlines the evaluation process and makes audits easier to get through. Approval automation becomes an investment that pays off for clients who get audited regularly due to the reliability, transparency, and efficiency it provides when recording and tracking financial approvals.

ApprovalMax is a cloud-based approval automation platform that helps accountants prepare for audits by streamlining the approval processes and providing an organised and comprehensive overview of financial data. Read on to learn how our features simplify the audit preparation process for auditors.

5 ways ApprovalMax simplifies audits:

1. A delegation of authority policy is built into your workflows

It’s good to have a separate document for your delegation of authority, but how do you make sure it’s not just a piece of paper in a filing cabinet or an online document saved in a folder? If your clients are still doing approvals on paper, their files will need to be organised and stored so they’re easy to retrieve. Keep in mind that human error can still come back to haunt your client during an audit if they are doing this manually! . Alternatively, if your client issuing email to grant approvals, during an audit they will need to search through inboxes to find the approval history for all approved documents. This can take up a lot of their time, effort, and result in missing information that’s been deleted.

With ApprovalMax, you can create your delegation of authority policy in an approval workflow, so authorisation rules are followed consistently each time. You can also show auditors quickly and easily how your approval process works based on the authorisation rules you have set up in ApprovalMax.

You can create a simple or complex approval matrix, set up approvals that happen one after the other or at the same time, and add rules based on cost limits, GL codes, and tracking categories.

2. Automatic audit reports and trails mean less manual work

With ApprovalMax, when a document is approved, a report showing all the details of the approval process is automatically created and added to it in Xero. This includes all decisions made, exceptions, comments, and more. If you want more information, you can find a full record of the approval process in ApprovalMax.

3. Create easier access for auditors

With ApprovalMax, you can invite auditors to view your workflows and audit reports. The auditors will have read-only access, so they can evaluate things safely without the risk of making changes. They can see all reports and requests for your organisation and add comments. To invite an auditor, go to the “Users” page, add a new user and choose the “Auditor” role from the drop-down menu.

4. Using built-in reporting to extract more information during an audit

ApprovalMax provides comprehensive reporting to help evaluate the compliance of approval processes. Auditors can see how approvals were granted and get a complete picture with searchable reports. You can also get an overview or dive into specific details by downloading reports in Excel. These reports help identify exceptions to the approval process, such as approvals delegated to someone else, requests that were automatically approved, requests that were not finished, and approvals made by administrators instead of the person who was supposed to approve.

5. Want to show off your approval workflow? Just export it.

Alternatively, you can share information about your approval workflows without inviting auditors to ApprovalMax. Simply open the workflow and press the “Export workflow” button to produce a PDF document with a written description of the flow. For example, if it’s a purchase order workflow, the document will include a list of individuals who are authorised to create purchase orders, the rules for each request maker, and for every stage, a list of those who approve them, with the rules for each approver.

Take the pain out of audits with ApprovalMax

If you have clients who are regularly audited, getting them onto an approval automation tool that’s built with the audit process in mind can help them feel more positive and confident during an audit. It also provides confidence to board directors who are demanding to have financial controls in place. ApprovalMax is a game-changer as its features allow auditors to easily and comprehensively analyse any approval process, without you or your client having to compile audit reports manually. We have accounting firms all over the world that say that their clients and auditors are pleased with the way ApprovalMax has changed their audit process, with several of them citing that it is a no-brainer if your client is regularly audited.

To summarise, here’s how ApprovalMax makes audits a breeze:

• Business critical processes are fully visible and traceable.

• Auditors have easy access to any document they need and find all the relevant authorisation data.

• Audit trails and reports facilitate data and process accuracy, which is the base for informed decision-making.

• Accountants benefit from time savings because the manual effort is minimal.