Challenge

KNAV was looking to make their processes more fluid and reduce the amount of manual effort that was part of their regular workflows in carrying out EBP audits.

Solution

KNAV chose Caseware OnPoint EBP, an intelligent software solution that allows firms to conduct robust EBP audits that provide unparalleled levels of accuracy and effectiveness. 

Results

OnPoint EBP running on Caseware Cloud has allowed KNAV to better synchronize their work papers and templates, while also significantly reducing the amount of manual labor involved.

“When we first evaluated OnPoint EBP, we saw the product’s depth and its ease of use, which motivated us to be on the Caseware OnPoint platform.”

Amber Mehta
Partner, KNAV

Company profile

KNAV CPA LLP (“KNAV”), a member firm of KNAV International, is an accomplished accounting firm that serves clients around the world. This global reach includes offices in seven countries (United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Singapore, Philippines and India), with three offices in the U.S. (Atlanta, New York and Houston).

Founded in 1999 by four practitioners who met while taking a CPA class, KNAV offers an array of audit, tax and consulting services, including practices in valuations and risk advisory. It now boasts a global staff of more than 500 individuals, with a team of 10 dedicated solely to employee benefit plan (EBP) audits. Those plans range from 100 to 8,500 participants, with a set value of US$143 million.

Continuously committed to leveraging modern technology to serve its clients and improve its operations, KNAV regularly employs artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics in its day-to-day activities.  

Challenges 

KNAV was looking for a way to make their processes more fluid and reduce the amount of manual effort that was part of their regular workflows in carrying out EBP audits. Creating a plan profile for a client, for instance, required practitioners to open each relevant file one by one, pull out the relevant information from each, and add that to a separate Word document to eventually cobble together a plan profile summary. Such work was proving to be laborious and time-consuming.

KNAV was also looking for a better way to ensure everything that needed to be completed on an engagement was, in fact, being completed. Team members would routinely have to go back and review the entire portfolio of documents, look for comments and manually ensure they had been resolved. The firm realized that automating this process and others like it would remove these inefficiencies.

Additionally, the rapidly changing face of the accounting and audit profession itself was posing various challenges for KNAV. These included the increasingly complex audit regulations coming down from bodies such as the Department of Labor in the U.S., as well as the need to attract the next generation of talent in an extremely tight post-pandemic employment market. 

Long a technology advocate within the industry, KNAV’s leadership knew that modern digital tools were certain to provide the answers to these pressing issues.

Solution

KNAV chose Caseware OnPoint EBP to answer its challenges. A Caseware Working Papers user since 2010, the firm was well-acquainted with the ease of use offered by Caseware’s products and the all-important synchronization inherent in the Caseware Cloud platform — something of paramount importance to the widely dispersed global firm.

“When we first evaluated OnPoint EBP, we compared it with what we were using at the time, and the fluidity of the whole process is what appealed to us,” said Amber Mehta, Partner, KNAV. “We just set up the plan profile, and the next steps would be taken care of.” 

Many other benefits the product offered were immediately evident, Amber added. “We saw the product’s depth and its ease of use, which motivated us to be on the Caseware OnPoint platform.”

OnPoint EBP allows firms to conduct robust EBP audits that provide unparalleled levels of accuracy and effectiveness. Some of its key features include:

• review tools to help auditors stay on top of issues
• automated draft financial statements that help save time
• risk alert indicators to head off trouble before it starts

The offering also serves up such benefits as real-time collaboration, intelligent file-building, comprehensive AICPA guidance and tools to assist in achieving regulatory compliance. Additionally, multiple digital and physical security layers provide iron-clad protection.

Results

OnPoint EBP running on Caseware Cloud has allowed KNAV to better synchronize the work papers and templates they use to carry out each EBP audit, helping team members rest easy in the knowledge that all work is up-to-date and everyone involved is on the same page. This has been especially important to KNAV, given its widely dispersed workforce spread across multiple time zones.

With all work now centralized in one virtual location, KNAV’s processes are much more easily controlled and managed. A good example has been seen in the firm’s procedures around sampling. Previously, multiple samples would often be spread across multiple different audit workpapers. The result was too many samples being included, or the inclusion of some samples that weren’t the most ideal. Bringing them all together eliminated these problems and has helped staff correctly audit the optimal number of samples required for any given engagement.  

KNAV has also seen a noticeable reduction in the amount of manual effort required throughout the EBP audit process.

“If there is a checklist that has not been filled out correctly, it takes a lot of time to review it and to ensure that everything is there in the file,” says Amber. “Or there could be a sampling that is not correct. Those things involve manual checks, whereas with OnPoint EBP, if you start doing it correctly from the start, it kind of flows through the entire file. That is a very good feature.”

The AICPA-guided methodology included with OnPoint EBP intelligently builds out engagements and guides auditors through each step. This has helped KNAV answer client inquiries with 100 percent certainty. “Upon seeing a requirement they aren’t familiar with, clients often ask, ‘Why is this required? I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I’ve never seen it.’ This guidance helps us correctly let them know where it is coming from and why it’s needed,” says Pratik Chaugule, Manager, KNAV. 

An additional benefit of the methodology is that it aids auditors in their own research and frequently gives them a starting point for acquiring knowledge of frequently changing regulations and requirements.

KNAV has also been pleased with the user-friendly interface that is a key component of the OnPoint EBP experience, in large part because it is appealing to younger auditors.

“The interface helps the current generation be more involved in the audit and makes it more enjoyable,” says Amber. “That’s where OnPoint EBP is scoring high marks simply because it makes it more enjoyable for people who are getting into this profession.”

KNAV estimates that Caseware OnPoint EBP is helping them save between 25 to 30 hours on every engagement they conduct, as compared to the way they were doing things before they adopted the software. 

“OnPoint EBP helps us improve efficiency and the turnaround times for every engagement that we perform an audit on,” says Hemant Motwani, Senior Manager, KNAV. 

The future

KNAV’s overwhelmingly positive experience with OnPoint EBP has motivated the firm to now start using OnPoint Audit as well. They are also planning to consider using OnPoint DAS at some point in the future.

“Caseware has always been a pleasure to work with,” says Amber. “We have a digital transformation team that oversees all of our software procurements. They have day-to-day interactions with Caseware. In those dealings and whenever we are at a conference or during other interactions, we have always found Caseware to be supportive.” 

If you’re ready to start your own journey with Caseware OnPoint EBP, contact us today to learn more about how it can move your firm into the modern age of employee benefit plan audits.