The Automated Financial Statement Review Tool – An Auditor’s Secret Weapon 

The financial statement review process is broken. For decades, accounting professionals have been performing reviews of financial statements using spreadsheets and manual checks. But as reporting requirements grow more complex, relying on manual processes and Excel-bound tools is no longer enough to uncover every casting error, mismatched disclosure or missing piece of information.  

They consume too much time.  

Excel add-in tools cause crashes that result in lost work.  

The process wears down talented staff who spend significant time rechecking and rekeying data.  

And they increase the risk of reporting errors because of tight deadlines and fragmented reviews. 

What is a review of financial statements? 

A review of manual financial statements during an audit involves the examination and verification of financial documents that are prepared or maintained using manual processes, often through spreadsheets like Excel or even paper records. This review process includes checking for accuracy, consistency and compliance with accounting standards and regulatory requirements. Auditors manually validate calculations, trace transactions back to source documents and confirm the integrity of financial data. 

Because these statements are not automatically updated or validated by software, the process is typically more time-consuming and prone to human error. Auditors must thoroughly inspect for common issues such as data entry errors, formula mistakes and version control problems, all of which can significantly impact the accuracy and reliability of the financial statements. 

Manual reviews are slowing teams down 

Manual financial statement reviews slow down reporting cycles. Financial reports grew by 46 percent between 2016 and 2021, according to The QCA. And with disclosure requirements and regulatory complexity increasing over time, reports continue to expand. At the same time, finance teams need to complete over 450 checks for each statement and sometimes navigate through more than 10 drafts before reaching the final version. 

The game changer: AI-powered financial validation 

Fortunately, there’s now an alternative to manual financial statement reviews and Excel-bound tools. AI-powered, cloud-based tools save you time and reduce errors. They let you: 

• Automate document matching: Eliminate time-consuming manual reconciliation by leveraging automated document matching capabilities. AI-powered tools can instantly align source documents with their respective entries, ensuring accuracy and consistency across financial statements without the need for manual intervention. 

• Perform comprehensive accuracy checks: Modern tools perform hundreds of automated checks on every financial statement, scanning for discrepancies, calculation errors and formatting issues. These real-time validations minimize the risk of overlooked mistakes, giving you greater confidence in the numbers. 

• Do version comparison between multiple drafts: Keep track of every change, no matter how small. AI-powered tools allow you to view side-by-side differences between multiple drafts, ensuring that updates are transparent and nothing slips through the cracks. 

• Cut manual checks: Reduce the burden of manual review by automating repetitive tasks that traditionally slow down the audit process. With modern solutions, audit teams can focus on higher-value tasks, while the platform handles the heavy lifting of accuracy verification.  Australia-based firm HLB Mann Judd Perth slashed its financial statement review time by 600 hours annually after adopting financial statement review tool Caseware Validate. The AI-powered platform delivered 40–50 percent time savings on subsequent drafts and eliminated the data loss issues that plagued its legacy Excel-based system. 

• Reduce reporting risk and strengthen compliance: Modern financial statement review tools offer automated controls designed to meet the latest compliance standards, helping you mitigate reporting risks. 

• Scale without Excel limitations, while still using Excel: Unlike traditional spreadsheet-based workflows, cloud-based financial statement review tools allow for seamless scalability. They remove Excel’s capacity constraints and formula errors, letting you experience smoother, faster financial statement reviews. 

The days of painstakingly combing through spreadsheets and manually checking for errors are gone. As the demands of financial reporting grow more complex, firms need smarter, faster ways to ensure accuracy and compliance. AI-powered financial statement review and validation tools, like Caseware Validate, are transforming how audits are performed by reducing manual effort, minimizing errors and accelerating review times. Embracing this technology not only enhances efficiency but also allows auditors to focus on high-value analysis instead of data wrangling. Discover how you can streamline your financial statement reviews with Caseware Validate here.