CASE STUDY
How Cherry Bekaert drove ROI for their audit engagements
Six steps of Cherry Bekaert’s rise with AI and next-generation data analytics
For over 70 years, Cherry Bekaert, a top 25 accounting firm in the United States, has helped thousands of clients achieve their financial, operational, and strategic goals. With more than 1,250 professionals, Cherry Bekaert leverages proprietary knowledge and innovation to deliver tailored accounting, audit, tax, and advisory services. Their philosophy has always embraced innovation, research, and diligence to nurture their one-on-one, value-based relationships with clients.
Provide differentiating value to clients
With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in accounting, Cherry Bekaert understands the opportunities for technology to report on the unique characteristics of a client’s data much faster and more comprehensively than manual methods.
“The palatable innovation for most accounting firms is problem-based innovation, where an issue or problem is identified – now let’s go solve it. There’s also solution-based innovation, which some refer to as a solution in search of a problem, but I see as a great opportunity.”
– Jonathan Kraftchick, Partner, Innovation at Cherry Bekaert
Cherry Bekaert knew it wasn’t just about the potential for increasing an auditor’s efficiency, it was also the chance to provide differentiating value to clients. In MindBridge, the Cherry Bekaert team found a partner that recognizes the uniqueness of each form and the importance of continuous advantages for their clients. MindBridge provided the exact requirement allowing for advanced anomaly detection and risk scoring through AI and machine learning while providing associates with the ease of use and autonomy to make more insightful decisions and informed professional judgement for their clients.
An in depth look at how Cherry Bekaert uses MindBridge audit data analytics
Transparency for world class data anomaly detection
MindBridge is 1st in the industry to commission an algorithmic audit. University College London Consulting (UCLC), world leading experts and renowned center of excellence for algorithm audit and safety, performed an independent algorithm assurance audit of MindBridge that MindBridge’s AI algorithms operate as expected. This audit demonstrates MindBridge’s commitment to transparency in building explainable, credible artificial intelligence.
MindBridge looks at things differently
Cherry Bekaert adopted MindBridge in 2020 and followed a strategic and deliberate deployment approach that included research, standards mapping, methodology and sampling form development, QC validation, and policy drafting. Early on, the from recognized the need to move past the piloting stage to define the use cases justifying a broader implementation.
Per Engagement: For moderate risk of material misstatement in an illustrative client, Cherry Bekaert demonstrated reduction in sample size of 66 percent.
Learn what kinds of saving that equated to for Cherry Bekaert LLP >
“During busy season, it’s hard to come by a Senior Auditor investing two hours towards a journal entry selection or testing 200 revenue items,” said Kraftchick. “While our audit team is highly skilled at spotting risky transactions and bringing new financial insights to clients using standard auditing methodology, MindBridge looked at things differently and achieved high-value results faster.”
Redefining risk to save time
“Most firms that rely solely on a third-party audit methodology are limited in the risk reduction benefits they can get because they must achieve 60% of their assurance from sampling,” said Hoose. “What if they only needed to achieve 10% of their assurance from sampling to achieve the same or higher level of overall audit risk?
MindBridge and risk-based sampling in general give you that higher level of assurance with much smaller sample sizes, saving an immense amount of time. If it takes me five minutes to test an item, the difference between testing 600 items and 60 items saves me weeks of effort.”
The value of implementing a vision
Using a strategic and deliberate approach for the deployment of MindBridge allowed Cherry Bekaert to discover and prove the best way to achieve audit efficiencies and greater value to clients.
“MindBridge is the future of auditing,” states Kraftchick. “ MindBridge is one of the very few AI auditing providers that are moving in that direction. That’s why we’re happy to have partnered with such a forward-thinking organization.”
With any automation effort, factoring in the changes to your internal processes or elections in audit methodology paired with the speed and quality of execution are key to deriving an ROI projection for any firm.
Take an in depth look at how Cherry Bekaert uses MindBridge audit data case study analytics across their practice to change how they gain assurance and generate significant return on investment through reliance on data driven techniques.
A guided framework for any firm looking to implement audit data analytics, focusing on centralized procedures and employee development to ensure long-term success.
For more information, please email us at info@mindbridge.ai.