Cloud technologies are shaking up the audit market

The audit market could soon go through a major change, with the Competition Commission proposing plans to make it mandatory for audit services to be put up for tender every five years. It is hoped that this will increase the level of competition within the industry. 

This recent announcement from the Competition Commission may take some of the UK’s largest businesses out of their comfort zone if they have been with the same accountancy practice for many years, but I think it is great news for the UK accountancy market and many IRIS customers. This change would give all audit firms the chance to compete on more of a level playing field against the ‘big four’ who have traditionally dominated the market.

Auditing work has always provided an opportunity for accountancy firms of all sizes, but the manpower needed and large volume of paperwork involved often meant that the work could not bring in enough money to make it a viable offering. As cloud technology becomes mainstream and we introduce solutions like IRIS OpenAudit - the UK’s first online audit solution - many of these barriers are immediately removed, offering smaller practices the chance to undertake audit work for the first time.

Cloud computing has already been billed as a modern day ‘industrial revolution’ in many sectors. New technology has helped to reduce costs, delivered operational agility and efficiency, and reduced reliance on expensive and critical IT infrastructure. Accountancy practices are now being offered similar benefits. 

Solutions can be consumed over the internet using a web browser, meaning accessibility from any internet connected device (inc tablets). And the data accessed is ‘real time’ and stored securely online, which means it can be a key part of a firm’s disaster recovery plans.

At IRIS, we use cloud technology to help accountants to work more efficiently and offer high quality additional services.  With this in mind, we have delivered an innovative solution to assist accountancy practices when carrying out audit work with the recent launch of IRIS OpenAudit. The new offering drives productivity by giving audit teams the freedom to work from any location and stay connected when in different locations, provides a wide range of entity coverage making it suitable for all audit firms, and delivers workflow efficiencies to improve recoverability rates.  

At the same time, IRIS OpenAudit is updated automatically outside of UK business hours. This is another benefit of cloud technology and gives our users the confidence that they are accessing the latest fully compliant version without experiencing downtime while a software update as added. 

Find out how a cloud auditing solution can benefit your practice with a free 14 day trial of IRIS OpenAudit.