Let’s face it. We all have to be audited at some point. And when I was an auditor, I practically lived in old conference rooms, repurposed janitor closets, and even hallways for 3 months a year. Most of my clients wanted us out of their lives as quickly as possible. That’s why I’m excited to share what we built at CREx. With CREx Software, accounting firms and internal auditors can automate real estate audits (at least the automatable parts).
Get Accounting Data from Property Management Software
One of the biggest challenges real estate firm auditors face is easy access to their client’s accounting data. With CREx’s integration service, accounting firms and internal auditors can easily pull data for workpapers, sample testing, and more. You can fully automate certain tests and documentation. This way, your staff gets to work on more interesting tasks and you eliminate the risk of manual error. With CREx, you can pull data directly from your client’s system. Or if your client doesn’t give you access to their system, your client can submit data to CREx’s data provider portal, which will automatically clean and vet their data. You’d be shocked at the number of times I received a general ledger where the total debits didn’t equal the total credits! CREx’s data provider portal rejects files with those issues, requiring resubmission of correct data.
Use CREx to Focus Your Audit Work
CREx’s analytics software can help you identify anomalies in journal entries as shown above, build custom variance analysis reports, or use machine learning to predict trends. These reports allow you to identify the most material aspects of your client’s business. Also, with CREx’s easy to use data integration, you can do your own analysis. With direct access to client’s data, you can quickly and easily pivot your audit work toward critical areas.
Give Your Clients Better Advice
With better data, you can give your clients better advice. You firm may serve your client in an operational advisory capacity as long as it does not impact or have the appearance of impacting their accounting. With CREx, your clients can pull 100% of their data from core operational systems. You can mine this data for strategies to reduce costs, improve efficiency, or optimize their portfolio. You will be able to identify strategies that have or haven’t worked and provide better guidance going forward. As you know, each client is slightly different. By having access to historical data unique to them, you can thoroughly support your recommendations.
Further, CREx Software include data governance reports within the standard package. Your advisory services could include helping your client have cleaner data. As the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” Ensure that your clients have the best opportunity to succeed by providing them with clean data.
With CREx, accounting firms and internal auditors can streamline their real estate audits, get easy and affordable access to accurate and up-to-date accounting data, and provide their clients with valuable insights. By automating your real estate audit, you save time and resources, focus your audit work, and ultimately provide better service to your clients. If you’re looking for a way to make your real estate audits more efficient and effective, give CREx a try.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. We’re always happy to help!
For more tips, be sure to check out our other blog posts.