Articles

One small step for Auvenir, one giant leap for American CPAs

by Malik Datardina, CPA, CA, CISA, GRC Strategist, Auvenir

Auvenir is now live in the US.

 

And that’s exciting considering, it was less than a year ago that Auvenir was live in the Canadian market.

 

But that’s only half of the excitement.

 

Auvenir’s strategy in Canada was to leverage the Professional Engagement Guide (PEG), published by CPA Canada. The PEG is the standard amongst the small-medium-sized practitioner community.

 

To understand how standard the PEG is in Canada, consider my experience at a New Brunswick CPA conference back in 2019. Although I was invited to deliver a primer on Audit Data Analytics (ADA), I also had the opportunity to attend the “Assurance Update” session. The instructor when discussing how to deal with one aspect of the changes paused to ask who uses the PEG. Nearly every hand went up. He could take it for granted that Canadian CPAs had a common set of templates to show the practice inspector - like him – in the event that file gets reviewed.

 

Now the US market is a different story.

 

As my colleague Alexandra Romanet pointed out previously, Auvenir strives to “bring world-class technology to audit and assurance SMBs internationally.” But in the US there really is no PEG equivalent. Many different options, but no single standard. And so Auvenir had to innovate. 

 

And that’s where Dr. Mark S. Beasley and Dr. Randy Elder enter the picture. They authored the US Content Guide available as part of the Auvenir Pro subscription that provides “access to the four engagement paths in Auvenir’s Pro Platform – Guided Audit Workflow, Guided Review Workflow, Guided Compilation Workflow, and Guided Preparation Workflow – based on the Audit and Attest and Compilation and Review Standards published by the AICPA…” Check out this link for more details.

 

With this release, Auvenir is poised to offer the power of standardization to the market.  And that’s a really exciting prospect. Going back to my session in New Brunswick, there’s a future scenario where firms in the US can potentially leverage this standardized content to streamline discussions around their audit, review, and assurance files.

 

Think of the humble screw. Imagine the chaos that reigned prior to standardization.

 

And that takes us to the work of the engineer William Sellers. According to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Sellers saw the value of standardized screws. He convinced the army, navy as well as “the master mechanics of America's largest railroads” to adopt the standard.

 

The result?

 

“By the 1880s, the new system of standard screw threads became widespread as machines with interchangeable parts, from typewriters to locomotives, flooded the national economy.” It seems odd that something so small can have such a significant impact. And that’s the potential power of embracing the standardization that Auvenir brings.

 

Auvenir’s cloud-based auditing and client collaboration platform are ready to transform the audit, review, compilation, and preparation process for smaller to medium-sized firms! If you want to learn more about our US launch, check out our press release here.

 

 

Malik Datardina, CPA, CA who has more than 20 years of experience in information systems, risk and assurance, information security governance and audit data analytics. In his current role as a Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) Strategist, where he manages internal compliance at Auvenir and takes a strategic lens towards the latest trends in innovation to build the audit platform of the future. 

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