Annual audits are no one’s idea of a good time, but using office technology rentals to improve the efficiency of your next audit can help make it less of a pain. If you’re like many US businesses, you may be subject to annual financial audits that take up a great deal of time and resources that can significantly drain the productivity of your office. Working with your auditor to ensure that you have the equipment they need in place to conduct the audit as quickly (and unobtrusively) as possible can help you ensure that your team can still concentrate on the business of your company. Here are a few ways that accounting and finance technology rentals can help improve the efficiency of your next audit.
An expensive disruption
Annual audits are a necessary evil – verifying the processes of your company’s financial systems and statements and evaluating your internal control measure to protect your company’s bottom line. But audits can also be expensive disruption to your business – tying up valuable office equipment and employee time. When you’re shelling out big money for financial professionals, ensuring that your audit is completed as quickly and efficiently as possible is a top priority.
The time you and your employees spend on your audit is time not spent thinking about your customers and the detracts from the productivity of your company. In addition to saving money, completing your audit in a timely manner also lets you and your workers get back to business. Office technology rentals allow your audit team to have access to the equipment they need to complete your audit on time without tying up valuable office equipment that your employees need for everyday operations.
A little prep can save you time and money
Talk to your auditor before the actual audit begins can help you and them be as prepared as possible when they arrive. Get a detailed list of any documents that your auditors will need access to and have them at hand for easy access when your audit begins. Additionally, find out what office equipment the auditor expects to use while on-site. Understanding in advance what your audit team will need help to prevent costly delays down the road.
Your auditor should provide you with a list of documents and schedules that they will need to complete your audit. Providing this information over to your audit team in advance allows your auditors to spend less time tracking down information while on-site.
If you’re working with a variety of documents (some that may be electronic and others that exist only in hardcopy form), scanning and emailing documents is an easy and efficient way to send information to your auditors. Scanner rentals allow you to quickly compile all of the documents that you need to send to your auditor without tying up your regular scanner or multipurpose copier. You don’t want to make a client wait for a scan while you’re tying up the machine for your auditors or to be wasting your auditors’ time while an employee sends a scan to a client.
Don’t let audits get in the way of getting business done
Though they are necessary and valuable to your company, your audit shouldn’t get in the way of your business. Your office equipment is designed to support your operation – and that operation needs to continue even during the audit. However, keeping a third-party accounting firm that bills by the hour waiting for equipment to be available isn’t logical either.
If your auditors need access to a database or files that exist only on company machines, desktop rentals or laptop rentals set up with your database or software are an ingenious solution to keeping both your operations and audit running smoothly. Instead of tying up the equipment or time of an employee, providing rental equipment for auditors to access during the audit makes the best use of the time and talents of all involved.
The added workload that audits can put on your regular office machinery, such as copiers and printers, can also create delays in getting business done. If your auditor needs multiple physical copies of reports, meeting minutes, or other documents, it can mean that your team doesn’t have access to the printer or copier for extended periods of time. Rather than leaving your employees or auditors watching the queue back up, printer rentals and copier rentals can help keep both your operations and audit running smoothly.
Physical inventory audits
For many businesses, annual audits often include a physical inventory audit. One of the most common complaints about physical audits is the old-fashioned (and time-consuming) nature of hand counting every item followed by data entry. Unfortunately, data entry is frequently a bottleneck in the physical inventory process, resulting in a slowdown in the process and added expense for your company. Inventory equipment rentals can help ensure that your physical inventory audits are conducted efficiently and completed faster.
Mobile devices like tablet and smartphone are transforming the physical inventory process. For physical inventory audits, tablet rentals and smartphone rentals preconfigured with your inventory management software allow you to take capture inventory counts digitally and update your inventory database in real time, allowing an activity that used to take days or weeks to be completed much faster.
No more bottlenecks
Don’t let your annual financial or physical audit get in the way of your day-to-day operations. Accounting and finance technology rentals keep your audit on track while keeping your everyday equipment free for your employees to use to do business. By making the audit more efficient, technology rentals can reduce the man-hours spent on your audit while also keeping employee downtime in check, thereby reducing your audits’ total financial costs.
Rentacomputer.com can provide all of the office equipment rentals you need to make your next annual financial or physical inventory audit more efficient. Just let us know what gear you need, and our technicians will arrive to deliver and install all of your equipment. From copiers and printers to laptops and iPads, get a quote for all your office equipment rental needs today!
Subscribe to our blog today to stay up-to-date with Rentacomputer.com and follow us on social media. Join in the discussion by commenting below.
