Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. You begin a client engagement to assess their compliance, only to discover they’ve done the bare minimum since their last assessment a year ago. No one can remember where key documents are, processes are out of date and new staff are clueless about requirements. It’s going to be like pulling teeth to get their compliance engagement completed by the expiration date.
But if you think about it, that’s not the only thing keeping you back from a smooth and efficient audit engagement with your client. Compliance assessments seem to have built-in roadblocks and potholes that force you to move at a snail’s pace through molasses. Let’s take a look at the inherent inefficiencies of compliance auditing, and how TCT can eliminate them.
Client Neglect
Throughout the assessment, you identify issues or concerns that your client should have addressed months ago. Every new issue interrupts the flow of the engagement and slows down your work. If your client had been proactive with maintaining compliance throughout the year, you wouldn’t have to attend to any of these issues. But their neglect definitely means more work for you.
TCT Portal’s Operational Mode can help eliminate tie-ups that come from neglect. Throughout the year, the TCT Portal spells out everything your client needs to do to keep on-track. Quarterly reminders are automatically sent to the right people so that nothing gets neglected and compliance remains manageable all year long.
As an auditor, you can use TCT Portal to monitor clients’ progress throughout the compliance period, so you know exactly what to expect when you arrive onsite. This means you have a client who is prepared for the onsite, and you have a great reason to interact with them throughout the year instead of just once.
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Auditing Spreadsheets
Many assessment firms rely on spreadsheets to capture and organize evidence. Spreadsheets are great for organizing basic information, but they can be a real bear on client engagements. You have multiple interviews, hundreds of files and countless pieces of information that some poor soul has to manually enter into the spreadsheet.
At the same time, you could have two or three others from your team contributing more information. Hopefully, you won’t be stepping on each other’s toes or fat-fingering your entries. Then you have to organize that complex conglomeration of information in a way that makes sense.
It’s a lot of manual work, and it’s difficult to share the data among assessors without duplication and missed notes.
TCT Portal automatically organizes every piece of evidence and every file that you collect. Enter data or load files into the system, and it is mapped to the correct requirement and easily accessible. There’s no need to reorganize collected evidence and no need to worry about missed or duplicated work.
Loading to the TCT Portal also makes the evidence easy to link to other requirements that require the same evidence. Further, the system automates the laborious task of version control on the engagement. Have an overall information security policy connected to over a hundred requirements? No problem with the TCT Portal—the system will automatically version the document everywhere it’s connected.
Reporting Rigormaroll
Your job is extremely complex, and usually that means you don’t have any kind of tool that will produce the kind of report you need to create. So after each assessment, you manually take the client’s information from the spreadsheet, manually enter it into a document and spend time reformatting it.
TCT Portal gives you reporting features you need. Simply click a button and the system generates the report of compliance for your clients and for the governing body. Imagine having a tool that lets your team collaborate and produce a 500-page report in seconds!
Collaboration Woes
On an engagement, collaboration is rarely an efficient process. Not only do you have to nag multiple people for evidence, but the evidence gets submitted in all kinds of ways—hard copies, emails, network drop folders, even text messages.
Besides that, there’s “audit fatigue”—when the company’s employees are constantly bombarded by internal and external auditors, often asking for the same documents. As a result, they may put off your requests for as long as possible.
With TCT Portal, you can eliminate a lot of the relational strain and communication issues that characterize many compliance assessments. Automated notifications handle the nagging for you when someone has an outstanding task, so you can spend your time on high-value tasks and keep the assessment moving forward. And all the evidence is submitted to one place, eliminating the mess of collecting documentation.
Related: Get Your Audit and Assessment Clients to Work With You
Remove the Assessment Roadblocks
TCT Portal makes it possible to just get in, do the assessment and send out the report. Could your existing audit process be dramatically reduced? Eliminate the roadblocks and potholes that get in the way of your work. Make your next audit quick and easy—schedule a personalized demo today.
