Audits and reviews have long been associated with operational challenges: last-minute data, endless email chains, and auditors working late into the night or weekends to reconcile mismatched data and make up time they lost waiting for clients to get back to them.
Firms have grown so accustomed to this process that it feels inevitable, like it’s simply the price of doing business.
But here’s the reality: it doesn’t have to be this way.
One of the biggest reasons audits don’t start on time is simple: auditors don’t receive data on time. And even once they receive the data needed to start, it may be incomplete, inaccurate, or in an unusable format.
When that happens, auditors are left scrambling to make up for it. The entire engagement gets compressed into an already tight schedule, leaving little room for careful analysis or strong client service.
That’s where data extraction for audits flips the script. By creating certainty in the earliest stages of an audit, including delivery and standardization of data, firms can start on time, reduce inefficiencies, and transform the way they deliver engagements.
Auditors know the drill. Which have these phrases have you thought to yourself?
“You can be the best audit team in the world with all the tools, but if your client isn’t efficient, it doesn’t matter.”
- Justin Pulgrano, SVP of Strategic Growth, Crunchafi
To cope, firms often patch the problem with:
These fixes might work in the short term, but they don’t solve the root issue: inconsistent and uncertain client data collection.
Worse, they lead to turnover, lost client relationship history, and teams that are stretched thin year after year.
At its core, delays in the audit process come down to inefficiency in collecting data. Common problems include:
When this happens, auditors face a daily dilemma: Should I work with whatever they sent me, or go back to the client and risk frustrating them further? Both options cost time. One can cost a healthy client relationship.
This endless cycle leads to inefficiency, strained client relationships, and burned-out staff who are left patching holes that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Data extraction for audits eliminates this uncertainty from the start:
Audit teams live and die by the efficiency of their people. Each engagement is budgeted for a fixed number of hours. When inefficiencies arise, someone pays the price: either the firm takes a loss, or staff work nights and weekends to “make up the time.”
That model simply doesn’t work anymore. Today’s workforce won’t tolerate outdated “rites of passage” like endless overtime.
Data extraction for audits is the future. It helps firms maximize their teams’ capacity without burning them out.
The result? More profitable engagements and a healthier workplace culture.
The features that drive the biggest impact:
It’s a simple formula: the less friction for your clients and teams, the more efficient your audits.
The most common hesitation firms raise: “Will my clients resist connecting their systems?”
The answer? Not really.
CPA firms have used Crunchafi’s Data Extraction software to connect more than 35,000 times to their clients’ accounting systems over the past four years. Adoption is strong because the process is lightweight, secure, and client-friendly.
Clients save time, avoid interruptions to their day, and reduce back-and-forth emails, all while enabling their auditor to do better work, more efficiently, for them.
Data extraction doesn’t just speed up audits. Firms see:
Audits don’t have to be a race against the clock. With Crunchafi’s Data Extraction software, firms gain certainty, audit efficiency, and stronger client connections.
Audits have always been known to be an inefficient process that will never change.
But now it can.
Crunchafi’s Data Extraction software gives firms certainty that their audits will start on time and they won’t have to go through tons of back-and-forth to gather client data.
Ready to transform your audit and review engagement process? Schedule a demo with Crunchafi today!
Data extraction in an audit is the process of retrieving data from a client to evaluate whether their financial statements are presented fairly and accurately. Crunchafi’s Data Extraction software securely connects to client accounting systems or ERPs to retrieve, validate, and standardize financial data. Instead of waiting on inconsistent reports, auditors get clean, complete, audit-ready data in minutes.
Manual audit tasks are reduced by automating data collection, reconciliation, and formatting. No more rekeying, PDF transcriptions, or manual manipulation of data in Excel. Auditors start from a reliable dataset every time.
The benefits of automated data extraction for CPA firms are audits that start on time, less back-and-forth with clients to collect their data, reduced errors, standardized processes, improved audit efficiency, and stronger client relationships.
