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My three years of experience at
PwC enables me to compare how pretty different between running the business
in the only-one state audit office and the renowned one. I hereby list two major
dissimilarities, namely their Human Capital and Audit Software.
As far as I’m concerned, the audit industry in
Indonesia is still a compulsory process that needs to be undertaken by auditees,
specifically for mandated entities such as national and sub-national entities (stipulated
by Constitution), listed companies (pursuant to prevailing stock exchange regulation),
and subsidiaries (based on parent’s instruction).
Let’s talk about
national and sub-national entities.
Based on the 1945 Constitution Section 23E
concerning the Audit Board stated that Audit of management and accountability of
state finance is conducted by an independent and free Audit Board. It means both the national and sub-national level who utilize state finance shall be audited by
the one and only Audit Board.
Statistically, Indonesia has 34 provinces spreading
over 17.000 islands across the Indonesia archipelago. A province consists of a certain
number of districts and cities. Cited from Wikipedia, the number of districts
in Indonesia is 416, while there are 98 cities. The relationship between the total
of provinces and the role of the Audit Board, as the one and an only institution whose
authority is conduct audit over state finance, is the Audit Board is domiciled
in the capital city, which is Jakarta and has a regional office in every province
(Section 23G, 1945 Constitution). After 71 years, the Audit Board has one
Headquarter and 34 Regional Offices with the number of civil servants reached
6.438 (Performance Accountability Report of the Audit Board year 2015, February
2016).
Compared to the Audit Board, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Indonesia, known as PwC Indonesia, has only one office in Jakarta, meanwhile
the engagements are possibly conducted throughout Indonesia. For more than 45
years, PwC has been drawing on knowledge and skills over 1.900 professional
staffs, including 50 partners and advisors (Transparency Report, A Conversation
on transparency, quality, and value, PwC Indonesia, September 2017).
Unavoidable compulsory audit for at least
548 entities (34 provinces + 416 districts + 98 cities) enforces the Audit
Board to employ professional auditors in order to attain the determined audit
purpose that the State Finance has been utilized properly and the financial
statements are free from material misstatements. Well, to me, most of the time I
find these words are so cliché, because, at the end of the day, I preferably
make sure that the audited reports are truly beneficial. For instance, I could earn
key findings that there are some incompliance issues resulting from state losses or any
significant internal control matters which will improve management’s way of
doing business (they don’t do the real business practice, though). Shortly, instead
of finding immaterial misstatements that eventually could be corrected through
some journal entries, I train myself to be more professional and sensitive about
“what could go wrong” in my particular engagements. Fyi, the Audit Board releases
three audited reports (financial statements, internal control, compliance
report). On the other hand, I labored about the accounting treatments far more
complicated at PwC than at the Audit Board. I even remember that there were some
meticulous audit reviews conducted by regional and a special division (I don’t exactly
remember the name). However, they only release one audit report which is audited
financial statements.
Therefore, I would say professional auditors
at PwC were designed to be more aware of accounting issues (this is specifically
to conduct audit over financial statements) because if there are some issues on,
let’s say, taxation and valuation, they will engage tax or advisory people. In
contrast, the Audit Board ‘nurtures’ the auditors to be more versatile
conducting financial audit because determining inefficiency of internal control
and finding in compliance issues, ‘force’ the auditors to fast learn the multidisciplinary the issue, for example senior (accountant) auditors most likely are able to audit infrastructures
(road, bridge, soil, etc) which actually technician’s things.
Talking about software, I need to admit
that the Audit Board is far behind PwC. While PwC has already conducted the
audit by global audit software so-called Aura. It is their global audit
software used across the network and across all audit engagements, it covers
all audit steps, for example, the working papers, the paperless reviews from
seniors, managers, directors, and partners, also the e-sign. Besides, there is
an Aura-Now which is an online, multi-engagement dashboard tool that allows the team to monitor progress toward completion and other key information across
their portfolio of Aura engagement databases. Yes, I truly acknowledge the cutting-edge
techs they use. They even have an Aura team as a problem solver regarding all
Aura issues. And, I have faith the ease of doing an audit at PwC significantly influence
by the global audit software.
Conversely, manual working papers are so familiar
at the Audit Board. Recalling the very first assigned engagements, I was surprised
knowing that I need to manually input some data and copy the working papers, instead
of exporting the previous audit database. The Audit Board is still striving to
establish the secured audit database. When I was at North Sumatera Regional Office, there was a training to disseminate information about audit software so-called
SiAP LKPD (Sistem Aplikasi Pemeriksaan
Laporan Keuangan/Audit Application System of Financial Statements) at
February 2018. I personally view this app as a good start to join the digital
era, even though I realized that the app isn’t user friendly and still
complicated. To deliver more values to our stakeholders, I do believe that transforming
audit practice from manual to digital is an excellent way; cut unnecessary
processes, maximize the utilization hours, and absolutely convenient way to
work.
Well, this is my personal opinion aiming
to document the recent comparison between the one and only Audit Board with the
renowned audit office in Indonesia. I will see in the next five to ten years,
what will happen then.
- 1945 Constitution
- Performance Accountability Report of the
Audit Board year 2015, February 2016
- Transparency Report, A Conversation on
transparency, quality, and value, PwC Indonesia, September 2017
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