Business Risk Advisory

Anchin’s business risk services group helps companies manage their risk at a strategic and operational level. While you work closely with a small team that is well-versed in every discipline of business risk services, you also have access to the support and expertise of dozens of renowned specialists and the experience of more than 300 professionals.

Anchin is a firm segmented into teams of industry experts, reflecting all of the major business sectors in the metropolitan area. This structure allows us to provide the attention to detail and flexibility of a boutique firm with the intellectual capital of a national firm.

Risk Management for Businesses

A business may need risk and financial advisory services to help identify potential liabilities that could impact its financial health and overall operations. At Anchin, we specialize in risk management services that can assess various aspects of a business, including financial management, information technology (IT), and core operations. By conducting comprehensive assessments, our specialists can help clients understand their vulnerabilities and develop strategies to mitigate these risks effectively.

These services enable your business to strengthen internal controls, improve decision-making processes, and safeguard assets. By choosing Ancin as your risk advisory consultant, you can proactively address potential threats, enhance your resilience to unexpected challenges, and ensure sustainable growth and success in an increasingly complex business environment.

How Our Risk Management Advisory Services Work

Anchin’s business risk services group conducts reviews to assess business operations in three critical areas — operations, information technology, and financial management. The evaluation process involves elements like:

• Interviews with employees across all areas of operation
• Interviews with primary clients and vendors
• An assessment of key business processes
• Analysis and testing of findings
• Practical recommendations for remediation

This thorough examination of the client’s personnel, business processes, infrastructure, and IT department helps identify and correct inefficiencies. It also extends to vendor relationships and customer feedback. We typically recommend a more comprehensive evaluation if we find significant weaknesses or discrepancies in the IT department.

Industrial Applications

Our business risk services group offers risk management advisory services to companies in various industries, providing recommendations to improve operations, systems, production, and cost efficiency. Specific industrial applications include:

• Advertising and public relations
• Financial services
• Energy and utilities
• Manufacturing
• Pharmaceuticals
• Packaging and printing
• Construction
• Real estate
• Publishing
• E-commerce
• Hospitality and entertainment
• Health care
• Exercise and fitness
• Importing and exporting
• Licensing and trademarks
• Shipping and distribution

Sarbanes Oxley Compliance and Corporate Governance

The professionals at Anchin help businesses design and assess the internal controls of their financial reporting systems. We provide a wide range of services for your organization’s internal audit group, from staffing and expertise delivery to advanced analytics and knowledge automation.

Many of our clients have gone down the traditional co-sourced audit paths only to find little to no savings or operational improvements. Anchin’s ability to identify synergies within the data to reduce the regulatory testing burden faced by many organizations is without equal. We find what others can’t.

Anchin can also help your Internal Audit team optimize numerous critical drivers of cost and inefficiency. Our program and planning optimization is structured to assist both the most senior management and supervisory staff in planning and risk management activities. Task consolidation and analytics automation will finally allow your team to dig deep within your data to uncover the hidden relationships and issues that cannot be found with more traditional audit procedures or even those well-known analytic tools.

Several examples of how we can help co-source your internal audit or compliance function include:

• Outsourced and co-sourced internal audit services
• Internal audit operational assessment and transformation
• Internal technology audit and assessments
• Internal audit analytics and robotics process automation
• Enterprise risk management and assessments
• Vendor and contract compliance

Sarbanes Oxley Compliance

Our clients include publicly held companies that we assist in complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002. This section requires that management and their auditors certify that their system of internal controls complies with a recognized internal control standard effective in preventing a material misstatement in a company’s financial statements.

In addition, Anchin applies these skills to our privately held and not-for-profit clients. These companies have seen and experienced how the best practices required by Section 404 can help them improve business operations and secure their assets.

Anchin maintains best practices when performing our assessments. Our top-down, cost-effective approach affords our clients a complete solution in a timely manner and is favorably opined by the Big Four and second-tier audit firms.

Corporate Governance

Anchin also consults with audit committees and boards of directors on ways to strengthen corporate governance. These key groups ensure that their principles and policies will flow throughout the organization to achieve the integrity and standards with which they want the company to operate. This optimized flow allows them to monitor their business to identify deviations from their established policies.

Anchin is available to provide a comprehensive range of corporate governance consulting services, including internal financial investigations, review of new accounting policies, due diligence audits, tax compliance and reporting, and special projects.

Construction Cost Reviews

As a creative, solutions-driven firm, we actively help owners and developers effectively oversee the financial aspects of their construction projects. Anchin’s professionals have developed a comprehensive approach to reviewing payment applications, change orders, and budgets for construction projects of all sizes. We can tailor our unique approach to fit any construction budget. We have successfully assisted owners and developers in controlling the costs of their construction projects ranging in size from $10 million to over $1 billion.

We assist our clients by identifying issues early and resolving them as quickly as possible, helping minimize costs and avoid costly litigation. Our role can be limited to tracking progress against the construction budget and identifying potential cost overruns as early as possible.

Our team can also be involved at a higher level, overseeing the bidding process and ensuring that every payment application is accurate and properly supported by all required documentation, only including charges permitted under the applicable contract. We can perform our requisition review pre- or post-payment.

When performing a detailed payment application review, our most common findings include:

• Unapproved change orders
• Change orders for work that is within the scope of the original contract
• Duplicate billings
• Billings for items unrelated to the project
• Insufficient documentation to support billings
• Labor hours/rates charged do not match the contract or timesheets
• Miscalculation of insurance charges and overhead allocations

Our clients view this service as a valuable tool to help them achieve their goals.

Case Studies

Several case studies demonstrating how our solutions can help companies proactively manage risks, improve operational efficiency, and achieve better financial outcomes include:

Internal Audit Transformation

A financial services organization sought to transform its Internal audit department because several key bottlenecks had developed over time that limited its effectiveness and efficiency. The solution quickly identified included several key areas of improvement in new audit onboarding and risk mitigation strategies that were due in an audit universe with many first-time audits. Additionally, we raised the bar with respect to efficiency, true root cause analyses, and providing insightful data and streamlining reporting to the audit committee.

Overall, the project delivered a sustainable annual reduction of effort of 30%.

Reduced SOX Testing

An international shipbuilder’s internal audit group looked to reduce its SOX testing so it could perform additional operational audits. After previous attempts, both internally and externally, to find synergies and connections, we uncovered several redundancies in the first week after receiving the internal control data and testing strategies. The final review and project uncovered a nearly 25% reduction in effort in the first year. Ongoing internal efforts have made that number increase to a 35% reduction of their annual SOX testing effort.

The Anchin Touch

The professionals in Anchin’s business risk services group have a big-picture perspective as certified public accountants, certified fraud examiners, certified information systems auditors, valuation experts, and operational management specialists. We are trained to look beyond the numbers and help companies optimize their operations and value through the effective use of information, manpower, and strategic planning. Our experienced consultants identify cost-effective, pragmatic solutions to our client’s business concerns.

Our business risk services group helps companies:

• Strengthen the effectiveness of corporate governance, including the internal control system
• Improve overall business operations through risk assessments and operational reviews of critical business processes
• Enhance the controls, security, operation, and selection of information technology (IT) systems and environment
• Maximize the efficiencies of electronic information management and E-discovery requirements

Contact the Professionals at Anchin Today to Learn More

If you want to learn more about risk management and how our services can benefit your business, the risk advisory consultants at Anchin can guide you. We prioritize honest, transparent communication across each project phase while creating customized solutions tailored to each client’s needs. Contact our business risk services group to get started.