How Crowe UK ensures a seamless UK audit experience for its overseas clients
About Crowe UK
Crowe UK is a member of Crowe Global, the world’s eighth largest audit, tax and advisory firm.
Crowe UK’s Global Business Solutions department takes care of compliance, HR and finance-related administration for its clients, wherever they expand around the world.
clients audited by Byrd + Link annually
of audits completed on time
positive client feedback
The challenge: Conflicted out from auditing the UK subsidiaries of overseas clients
Crowe UK provides a range of services for its overseas clients who want to establish a UK subsidiary — everything from bookkeeping and bank account management to HR, payroll, and tax compliance services.
Many of these clients are US-based technology companies with ambitious expansion plans. Crowe UK works hard to deliver the smooth, high-quality service its clients need and expect.
Annual audits of their UK subsidiaries are a key regulatory requirement facing all these companies. However, Crowe UK cannot conduct these audits for its clients, because this would be deemed a conflict of interest due to the other services it also provides them.
To ensure a seamless, world-class service for its clients, Crowe UK decided to partner with a firm that can provide UK audit services to those clients.
Part of our role is keeping our clients compliant with local laws and regulations, including an audit of their UK subsidiary. But given the amount of work we do for our clients, we cannot also act as their auditor. We are conflicted out under the UK’s audit regulations.
The solution: Partnering with a trusted firm to conduct UK audits
Crowe UK have established an ongoing partnership with audit specialists Byrd + Link to conduct audits on its clients’ UK subsidiaries.
The Crowe UK team remains the client’s key point of contact, and works closely with Byrd + Link to ensure as smooth and easy an audit process as possible for their clients.
“When Byrd + Link have a regulatory requirement to speak to our client, they do so. But we are essentially the face of the service,” explains Richard Austin, Head of Global Business Solutions at Crowe UK.
“We do all the heavy lifting for our clients, so it feels seamless to them and they don’t necessarily have to feel the pain of an audit.”
Richard and his team enjoy working with the Byrd + Link team, and appreciate their open, collaborative approach. Annual reviews of audits conducted and the overall working relationship help both firms learn from past successes and challenges, and refine their approach accordingly. They develop a detailed timetable with key milestones for the year.
We trust that Byrd + Link will give us honest, valid, up-to-date advice.
We have a very good, collaborative working relationship with them; very open and frank, with good two-way communication and feedback.
The results: A seamless UK audit experience for an expanding roster of satisifed clients
To date, Byrd + Link has successfully delivered audits for nearly 40 of Crowe UK’s clients, including many for the second or third year in a row.
The partnership with Byrd + Link enables Crowe UK to provide the full range of business-critical, high-quality services its overseas clients with UK subsidiaries want and expect.
The feedback from Crowe UK’s clients on Byrd + Link’s work has been 100% positive. Richard measures the success of their services by how smoothly an audit goes: “How easily and painlessly can we take a client from the start of an audit process to the end? Are they on time? And Byrd + Link are delivering against that metric. Up to 90% are completed on time, with extenuating circumstances affecting the other 10%.”
Looking ahead, Richard anticipates the working relationship with Byrd + Link will continue to thrive and expand, as both Crowe UK’s client list and UK regulatory demands increase.
“Luckily, we're a growing business and so there's more audits to be done. And it’s a more highly regulated industry than it used to be. So both of us have got bigger demands upon one another — and we’re working together to determine exactly what that means in practice.”
“Would I recommend Byrd + Link to other companies needing audit services? No. Because they do a great job for us and we don't want anyone else using them!”
I would strongly recommend Byrd + Link to any companies needing UK audits. Their fees are very reasonable for what is now a highly regulated sector, and they are a friendly, communicative bunch.
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Facing audit conflicts with your overseas clients' UK subsidiaries? Team up with Byrd + Link to ensure your clients receive the services they need.
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