Kurt Kofford Director Send Email View Full Bio

If you missed yesterday’s event “Is It Time for Your Business Check Up?” with the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado, Kurt Kofford presented basic and indepth ideas about areas of business that can either make or break a successful company.

You can find the PowerPoint presentation here.

If you have questions about areas where your business might need an extra focus or about the presenation, please contact Kurt Kofford. 

Interested in attending our future events?  Contact Stephanie Johnson.

Kurt Kofford Director Send Email View Full Bio

Deborah Helton Manager Send Email View Full Bio

If you missed today’s Entrepreneurial Corner breakfast that highlighted updates from the Healthcare Law and how it could affect your business, please find the handouts below.

BiggsKofford, P.C. Entrepreneurial Series, October 28, 2010

Panelists:
Deborah Helton, CPA, Manager, BiggsKofford
George Martin, President and CEO, Benefit Resources
Dan Karpel, Founder and CEO, Peak Medical Management

If you are interested in attending or sponsoring a future Entrepreneurial Corner, please contact Stephanie Johnson at (719) 579-9090.

Chris Blees Director Send Email View Full Bio

Kurt Kofford Director Send Email View Full Bio

Recently, BiggsKofford hosted an event highlighting the various topics that are essential to The Mayor Project, which is slated to be on November’s ballot. In case you missed this event, a copy of the presentation handouts can be found here:

The Mayor Project: A Perspective on City Governance 

Funding is imperative for this initiative to be successful, and we believe that this is an issue our city must pass. We are requesting that you join us in contributing to this extremely important cause. We would be happy to discuss with you why we believe so strongly about this issue. Feel free to call Kurt, Chris or Jerry if you need more information before you decide to donate.

Jerry Biggs – (719) 661-1202
Kurt Kofford – (719) 661-9091
Chris Blees – (719) 649-8749

To make a donation to The Mayor Project, please make your checks out to The Mayor Project and mail to BiggsKofford, P.C., 630 Southpointe Court, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80906. You may also make online donations here.

Kurt Kofford Director Send Email View Full Bio

Consider these scenarios:

1. You just received a regulatory notice in the mail from the government agency that regulates your company or organization, informing you that the audit of your company didn’t meet the required standards. The notice uses threatening language to spell out the negative consequences of not complying. What went wrong?
2. You just received your company’s audit report in the mail and you realize that you have had very little interaction with your auditors. Instead of reaping the side benefits of insights and recommendations from the auditors outside perspective developed while auditing your organization, all you got were the pieces of paper you are required to give to the bank. What went wrong? Could this situation have been changed by taking different steps when choosing a CPA firm?

Aren’t all financial statements audits created equally?

The answer is a definite no! Audits are not a commodity in which one gallon of gas is just like the next. Yes, there is a large body of professional standards to guide all auditors in the performance of an audit and reporting on financial statements, but there is a wide variance in actual practice as to how those standards are followed.
The professional auditing and reporting standards are broad enough and flexible enough to allow for the uniqueness of different companies and organizations and the different approaches of CPA firms performing the audits. This is as it should be, because no two organizations are alike and professional judgment is still the most important element of an audit.

When an audit is not an audit

Unfortunately, in my 26 years as a CPA and an auditor, and my experience over the last four years on the Colorado State Board of Accountancy, I have learned that some audits are better than others, and a few are downright bad. There are many factors that go into creating a superior audit, including the approach, skills, knowledge and time allocated to the audit. Most of these are factors in arriving at the cost of an audit, yet many organizations and companies select their auditors on the basis of cost alone as if the audit by one CPA firm is the same as the next.

How big is the problem?

No one knows for sure how many sub-standard audits there are, but recent studies in certain sectors have revealed concerning deficiencies. Substandard audits have become enough of a concern for the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that they are considering a proposal to require any auditor performing an audit to be submitted to them to be from an approved list, which would allow them to exclude auditors who have not been performing audits up to the required standards.

What to Do? Our Recommendations

The first thing to consider is the competence and longevity of the firm or accountant that you are engaging to audit your company. How long have they been in business? What is the firm’s professional standing and experience in your industry? Do they list references in their proposal for similar work and similar industries that they have done work for in the past? Check the Web site for the Colorado State Board of Accountancy to see if they have had any complaints filed against them. Not only should you find out if the CPA firm is a member of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), but you should inquire how they have used their membership to improve their audit quality. For example, the AICPA has Audit Quality Centers for specialized areas such as employee benefit plan audits, where members can join to access resources to improve the quality of their audits. Also, check to see if they are in good standing with the Colorado Society of Certified Public Accountants (CSCPA). Both organizations require audit firms to conduct tri-annual peer reviews (an audit of the auditors).

Ask them for their most recent peer review report and discuss the finding of their peer review with them to determine what suggestions for improvement were made.

And of course, it’s important to take a detailed look at the proposal. Are they proposing in writing that your company’s needs will be met and to the proper regulations? When looking at proposals to decide on a CPA firm, many companies put together an audit committee to come to a decision as a group.

In my position with the State Board of Accountancy, I’ve seen situations where businesses or organizations have made bad decisions in choosing CPAs when it came to their audit. These situations haven’t made headlines, but bad situations happen more than what I would like to see.

The Bottom Line

Selecting an auditor based only on cost is not a good idea. Often the old axiom applies “You get what you pay for”, so make sure you are reaping the benefits that an audit should bring to an organization.



]]> http://www.biggskofford.com/blog/auditing-the-auditors/feed/ 2 http://www.biggskofford.com/blog/when-times-get-tough-%e2%80%93-ask-your-clients/ http://www.biggskofford.com/blog/when-times-get-tough-%e2%80%93-ask-your-clients/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 22:24:33 +0000 sjohnson http://www.biggskofford.com/?p=1243

Kurt Kofford Director Send Email View Full Bio

• Not sure how your clients will react to changes you are thinking about?
• Would you like to know how you could increase your market share while times are tough?
• Would you like to be able to get more business from your current clients?
• Do you wonder how your product or client service stacks up against the competition?
• Are you looking for some specific, valuable guidance for your business problems?

Who wouldn’t love to get answers to these important questions?  But where can you go to find a group of people who know about your business and would take the time to give you their advice?

The answer is much closer than you think.  Your own clients are one of the most valuable groups your business has, and if asked, it is likely that they will be more than willing to provide meaningful, relevant and supportive input to your business.

With a structured, fully facilitated Client Advisory Board, you can get a real ‘outside-looking-in’ perspective of your business.

Holding a Client Advisory Board will:

• help you identify what things you’re doing well—so you can keep doing them
• give you ideas on what you can improve, and get suggestions on how
• help you determine your priorities based on what your clients would like
• give your team a real sense of reward and focus, so they are more motivated than ever before.

The information you’ll gain from holding a Client Advisory Board is specific to your business and represents a giant step on a path towards helping you deliver the extraordinary service that will keep your customers coming back for more.

Our firm has received that kind of valuable input and feedback.  We held a Client Advisory Board with 14 of our good clients to find answers to some of the questions that were most important to us to help us formulate our strategy to react to the challenging times we are in.  It turned out to be a very positive and helpful experience for us. I think it can be a big source of help for you as well.

How Does It Work?

1. Determine exactly what you want to achieve from your Client Advisory Board.
2. Decide who of your clients will be best suited to invite to your Client Advisory Board. You typically want to invite your better clients, the kind you would like to take care of.
3. Inviting them to your Client Advisory Board with a letter and a phone call that lets them know their input will be important and valued.
4. Design a list of appropriate questions to ask at your Client Advisory Board. We asked questions such as “What suggestions do you have for how BiggsKofford could improve its service?”, “What could we do to obtain more referrals from our clients?” and “If you were CEO of BiggsKofford, what is the first thing you would do to make change?”
5. Find an outside party to facilitate your Client Advisory Board for you. This allows your clients to give input without pressure.  We had a CEO of an accounting firm from Denver facilitate ours.
6. Once the meeting is over, meet with your facilitator to review what was said and to help you decide what to do about it.
7. Audio record the entire meeting and the follow-up consultation so you can review and get a real understanding of the essence of the meeting.
8. After you have reviewed the recordings, prepare a report to send to your clients outlining the issues that were raised and what actions you’ll be taking on each one.
9. The last step is to implement the strategies and ideas your Clients spoke about.

This process turned out to be a very positive one for our firm. Our clients were very gracious and willing to provide feedback on both positive aspects of our firm and things we could be doing better.  It is amazing what you can learn when you just ask your clients. For example, we were wondering what we should do to obtain more referrals from our clients and had considered elaborate methods to try.  It turned out that our clients told us to forget about any fancy methods for referrals and to just ask them.  They also came up with some great ideas for better communicating how we could help them and had specific suggestions on how to make the process of preparing corporate tax returns easier.

See – if you really want to know how to improve – just ask your clients.  They can be your best source of help.  And it never hurts to let your best clients know that you want to improve and serve them better.  Try a Client Advisory Board for your business!



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