5 Best Reporting Best Practices for Auditors and Investigators in State and Local Government
There is no shortage of reporting solutions on the market today. But auditors and investigators in state and local government still spend far too much time compiling reports. They also put too much effort into making sure those reports are accurate and easy to understand.
By moving to a software-driven audit reporting process, agencies across the government will be able to allocate resources more effectively.
“We made the decision to implement an audit and investigation process management solution and saw a 40% reduction in time spent in audit reporting,” reports one State Government Agency.
Additionally, agencies are finding that they have real-time visibility into audit findings and status updates after software implementation, enabling them to take timely action and drive improvements. The overall audit quality has improved, non-compliance risk has decreased, and the efficiencies are substantial.
Why can’t more government agencies drive efficiency and accuracy with their reporting?
Barriers to producing effective, accurate compliance reports
During a recent webinar OPEXUS State & Local Sales Director Ryan Trudeau explored the top five trends that are costing auditors and investigators precious time and money when it comes to reporting:
5 best practices for overcoming government reporting trends
Fortunately, there are best practices auditors and investigators can adopt to overcome the trends outlined above.
1. Ensure rapid report generation and caseload completion
It’s crucial to an agency’s reputation to quickly deliver reports that share actionable insights. After all, we’re all accustomed to accessing information over the internet anytime, anywhere. No one wants to wait months to receive a report. Rapid reporting also:
2. Use figures, visuals, and text stylization
It’s important to draw the reader’s attention to critical data. Figures, visualizations, and text stylizations within a report can help do just that, helping auditors and investigators to:
3. Reference everything in your metadata
Though typically a time-consuming task, referencing a report is critical to attain and keep the trust of constituents and other stakeholders. It can be tempting to take shortcuts—but doing so can erode trust over time. Referencing is important because it:
4. Provide easy access to leadership and constituents
Leadership and constituents expect world-class digital user experiences. They expect no less when it comes to interacting with audit and investigative reports. Making reports easily accessible:
5. Automate
There’s no rule that says reporting must be a time-consuming task. When auditors and investigators can automate otherwise manual reporting tasks, they increase:
How to adopt these best practices and overcome the biggest barriers to faster, more reliable reporting
As good as these best practices sound, you may be wondering how you actually go about implementing them. Watch the on-demand webinar: 5 Reporting Best practices to learn more about the top trends impacting state and local reporting and how to create timely, accurate, trustworthy, accessible, and easy-to-understand audit and investigative reports using the eCase platform.