Speaker: Steve Baxter, Audit Manager, MGI Midgley Snelling
Steve Baxter: Hello my name's Steve and I'm an audit manager here at MGI and I have been so for the last five years.
Before using Glasscubes, how did you request information from clients?
Steve Baxter: So prior to using Glasscubes we used to prior to starting the audit work, we would email the clients, and we would normally attach an Excel document, which would list all the information we would require. They would then obviously reply to that email with the information and do any audit, like field work, any queries we would have would obviously then be sent by email as well, and the information requested will be embodied within the email. So problems, issues it would create would be, sometimes we'd have long email trails and information, would kind of get lost and different members of the audit team would maybe then end up requesting the same piece of information that we already had. So it was, it was quite hard to keep kind of a summary and then know exactly what information we had and we hadn't already got because of the long email trails that this would create.
Did you have any concerns about moving to a new solution like Glasscubes?
Steve Baxter: We have two main concerns about moving over to Glasscubes, the first one being would the clients engage in this new software, this new way of us doing things, for the last so many years that have been used to us just emailing them a list of information that we require and they would just reply to the email. So this was obviously going to be a new way of doing things for them. So it was obviously only going to be beneficial if the clients were on board and would engage via Glasscubes. And thankfully, every client that we've put on Glasscubes to date have engaged thoroughly so that concern is not here anymore. And the other concern we had was obviously the ease of uploading the information by the clients and obviously the ease of downloading the information by us auditors. And thankfully, yeah, that's been very smooth from both ends, so there's not been any problems with that.
Has Glasscubes been useful?
Steve Baxter: Glasscubes has helped massively to date, with the whole audit process. Myself being the audit manager, I find it very useful to request the initial information through Glasscubes, and year-on-year the information is already there to request again. So it's simply rolling it forward and then requesting it out to the clients and I find it very useful in just during the audit phase just to have a look on there and see exactly where we are in the audit, I can see what information is still left outstanding, and you can set up automatic reminders to the clients to upload information and from the client side of things I've actually found that they've, actually uploaded information quicker than they would normally via email, which is obviously benefited the audit team. The clients like the transparency to see exactly what information they still got to provide. Rather than keep asking us, they can just login to Glasscubes and see this for themselves. And the audit team have thoroughly enjoyed the process now as well, because they can all see exactly what information has been asked for what information needs to come in. So it's just having the transparency to have everything all in one place where the clients can see it, the audit team can see it, the audit manager can see it, the audit partner can see it. So it's a good way of just keeping the whole audit engagement all in one area. So far it's been he's been very successful. Another thing I would add that Glasscubes have been very supportive in us and helping any questions we had during the set up process and even ongoing now they always respond very promptly, so I can't fault that.
Would you recommend Glasscubes to other firms?
Steve Baxter: We would definitely recommend using Glasscubes. It was a very easy, smooth process in setting everything up. And we've received positive feedback from the clients who have enjoyed having just one secure workspace where all the information and queries are all kept in one space rather than constant emails coming through to their inboxes. At least this way, the clients they enjoy, just knowing they could just log on to Glasscubes and see exactly what queries and what information is outstanding. And us as the audit team, we've enjoyed that having the transparency to see everything, we feel like we're getting quicker responses from clients by asking for information via Glasscubes rather than what we used to do via emails. So I would definitely recommend the use of Glasscubes.
