BDO UK extends Ideagen’s Pentana Audit

BDO UK, part of the international accountancy and business advisory firm, is to extend its use of Ideagen’s internal auditing software to its South African member firm following its success in the UK.
Pentana Audit will be rolled out across BDO South Africa’s Risk Advisory Service (RAS) offering to help with internal audit services for its clients.
BDO South Africa’s RAS division provides outsourced internal audit services for organisations operating mainly within the mining sector. In addition to executing projects in South Africa, this division has a client base that reaches some neighbouring countries.
Mohamed Mia, Associate Director of BDO South Africa’s RAS, said Pentana Audit would help streamline internal audit processes associated with risk controls and general quality assurance.
He says: “Pentana Audit will replace a number of current systems that are in place to help us execute our final internal audit service which involved, at times, a lot of duplication of effort and data input.
“This duplication had caused some serious bottlenecks in our operations and that was something we had to address.
“Mohamed added: “We assessed Pentana Audit in use within our UK operations and we were extremely satisfied
with both the success and the impact of the software in regards to the automation of certain aspects of internal audit — such as risk and controls, findings management and general action planning.
“It was then that we decided to extend the software into our own Risk Advisory Services here in South Africa. Pentana Audit will provide us with time savings and efficiencies and allow us to not only complete our internal audits on time it but in advance of our deadlines.
“As an organisation, we are looking to complete our audit report almost as soon as our field work is done and Pentana Audit is certainly a step in the right direction towards that goal.”
In January this year, Ideagen and BDO UK’s RAS division teamed up to produce a thought leading white paper on corporate compliance and oversight. The paper, entitled ‘The Golden Thread: Achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage via Risk-Based Compliance and Oversight’ highlighted the importance of collaboration between an organisation’s board, management and internal audit teams in managing corporate risk.
Together with the installations in BDO UK and BDO South Africa RAS operations, Ideagen’s Pentana Audit solution is also used by both the BDO Australia and BDO Germany firms.