Feature: The evolution of the auditor

With technology advancing at an unprecedented pace and enabling organisations to harness and analyse more data than ever before, the audit profession is poised for profound and rapid change.

The ability to adapt to change (which is happening at an extraordinary and exponential rate) is arguably one of the most important attributes that our current auditors and audit trainees, the future CAs(SA), will need in this digital age.

Technology, combined with the underlying technical expertise of today’s auditor, allows auditors to take a much deeper dive into the financial facets of an organisation and provide insights that result in more informed decisions in support of a high-quality audit.

This is precisely why, in an ambitious project called CA2025,1 SAICA commissioned research into the expected competencies of future CAs(SA). This year, SAICA entered the final stage of its CA2025 project: the approval of a revised competency framework aimed at entry-level CAs(SA). This framework has been developed and defines fit-for-purpose competencies that are developed through the qualification process. The framework and related changes to the qualification process are aimed at developing accounting professionals who are lifelong learners who can adapt and remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. This project defines three types of competencies, namely professional values and attitudes, enabling competencies (also known as acumens) and technical competencies. Digital acumen has been highlighted as one of the most important changes to this framework.

The digitally transformed auditor
As the audit and accounting profession gears up for the implementation of the CA2025 project across all aspects of the qualification process, Deloitte Africa established the Analytics Specialist Audit Trainee Programme in 2019. The programme sets out to disrupt the current traditional audit trainee route by early adopting the development of the competencies as set out in the CA2025 competency framework.

The bar is set high throughout the programme as it challenges Deloitte’s audit analytics trainees to become proficient in capability areas such as:

• Relational database management systems
• Data visualisations
• Predictive and regression analytics
• Substantive test of detail analytics, and
• Process mining analytics

With the above capabilities, the audit teams are far more empowered to execute high-quality audits faster and better as they have the ability to handle and analyse large and full population data sets, the creative mindset to design bespoke analytics, and professional judgement to analyse the output appropriately in accordance with the International Auditing Standards (ISAs). As a result we are saving our clients more time (through a reduction in trainees’ interactions with their finance teams) and adding significant value through combined additional insights to their businesses.

Significant growth is expected in audit transformation over the next two years, including:

• Faster enhancement of our audit approaches through advanced analytics across our Africa audit client engagements
• Significant fast-track adoption of standard Deloitte audit analytics, providing far more consistency in executing our audits, and
• Providing insights through our analytics capability to our stakeholders such as audit and board committees

This Deloitte analytics programme is the first of its kind in the audit profession in Africa and we are proud to have seen successful results over the past two years. Our global Deloitte network recognised the significant impact this programme is having across our audit engagements, to such an extent that the programme has been globalised and is being deployed to our other member firms across the globe since April 2021.

Our clients will continue to experience consistent audits, and through this new audit trainee talent model, we will reach prospective CAs(SA) who go far beyond traditional audit trainees and empower them to execute their tasks far more efficiently and effectively.

Audit trainees successfully completing this programme during their three-year articles at Deloitte Africa, and achieving their CA(SA) through SAICA, can look forward to qualifying as well as attaining accreditation with the sought-after Deloitte data analytics competencies.

Stakeholders such as professional bodies and regulators are looking into the analytics programme as the audit and accounting profession prepares for evolving the chartered accountant curriculum.

The success of the Deloitte analytics programme has seen our analytics audit trainee headcount double and redouble in the last two years. It is exciting to see first-hand how the Deloitte analytics programme, and its alignment to the CA2025, is making an impact that matters.

REFERENCE
1 CA2025 is the future-focused competency framework which defines competencies expected of entry-level CAs(SA).

Author
Marteli Brewis