|
|
25 Feb 2010
“Big is best” is a phrase often quoted in business circles, but for many corporate consumers of audit services the truth can be very different.
An independent survey into clients’ views on the service they received from their last audit provider found the Big Four lagging far behind smaller rivals.
Of 12 leading audit firms, the Big Four member to receive the highest ranking, PricewaterhouseCoopers, only managed 5th place. The firm stood out for its strong technical skills but failed to impress in other areas.
Mazars was placed first with Horwath Clark Whitehill and Grant Thornton coming in second and third.
Ernst & Young suffered the worst results, ranking 12th and coming bottom in each of the five aspects of service graded. Staff were described as “pretty dire”, short on technical knowledge, confidence and even decent written English. Negative comments outnumbered the positive two to one.
“These findings are wholly inconsistent with the positive and detailed feedback we receive from our clients and other stakeholders,” stated E&Y. “We are committed to audit quality and delivering technical excellence."
KPMG and Deloitte fared little better in the inaugural Finance 360 survey of senior readers of Accountancy Age and sister publication Financial Director, coming in 9th and 10th.
While KPMG won plaudits for technical skills, it was let down by perception of its added value, with one FD claiming “very little feedback on potential improvements” their money.
Deloitte also struggled to prove it added value, while clients felt the firm’s audits were “mechanical” and an exercise in “box-ticking”.
One FD felt Deloitte was “more concerned with gathering enough evidence to stand up in court with a defence if there were ever a negligence case”.
The firm proved more popular for its transparent and fair billing. A KPMG spokesman said the firm was “committed to the very highest standards of audit quality and service”. Deloitte declined to comment.
At the other end of the rankings Mazars scored well across all five categories, while Horwath came top for fair billing.
David Evans, senior partner at first-placed Mazars, said: “Every team member at Mazars strives to put clients at the heart of everything they do. It’s fantastic to have this hard work and dedication recognised in the results of the survey.”
Mark Lucas, head of audit, tax, advisory at 6th placed RSM Tenon, said: “It's clear the profession can all do better to build on the quality of services and responsiveness to the marketplace.”
Further reading:
You may also like
Search thousands of financial jobs:
Search thousands of financial jobs:
Careers
Search for jobs
Click to search our database of all the latest accountancy roles
Create a profile
Click to set up your profile and let the best recruiters find you
Jobs by email
Sign up to receive regular updates with the latest roles suitable for you
Briefings
By looking at the reasons supplier statements became unfashionable, and the reasons why it is different today, this paper delves into the many benefits that can be obtained by automating the process.
Having a real and true view of your organisation’s current financial position, and having the right systems and processes in place, will ensure that you can make strong choices and are ready to capitalise on opportunities
AccountancyAgeInsight is a frequently updated resource centre for finance professionals, offering a free and easy-to-use digital library of briefings, white papers and other information resources. 
Visitor comments Add your comment
Client knows best
We are a tiny practice with a few small audits all without external shareholders and have recently been "visited" by big brother to see if we were conducting ourselves property. Naturally, as expected, our paperwork did not come up to their lofty standards, a tick missing here or there and no doubt we will be ticked off or put in the corner with the dunce cap on. However, they at no time did they check the actual work done, only whether we had bits of paper to say what we had done. They seemed incapable of following lead schedules through. So now we have to kill a few more trees, put up our fees and waste more time filling in defensive paperwork, for whose benefit, not the clients, obviously, as they never see it, but have to pay for it. It is only the much larger practices working on very big audits with hundreds of new, barely trained "auditors" who need all this defensive paperwork, but it is the small practices like ours who make up the majority in the country who have to pay for their costly mistakes. About time someone did a check on how many of the small practices have ever been sued for dropping a client into trouble.
Posted by: Kate, 25 Feb 2010 | 00:00
how many reolies
Did they receive 360 replies to the survey? Or perhaps were only 360 replies to a much larger survey.
There is a tendency only to answer a survey if there is a wish to record disatisfaction. So how much credence can be taken from these so called results.
What form did the survey take? i.e telephonic? e-mail? some other method?
Posted by: geoff wolf, 25 Feb 2010 | 00:00