Hans Interim Assignments
Hans Interim assignments give you an overview of two recent assignments and previous assignments.
Achieving an unqualified audit opinion after four years of qualified opinions.
After four years of receiving qualified audit opinions, my client has received its first unqualified audit opinion for the year 2024.
The problem: A single country with a significant project accounting for roughly 50% of its income is the cause of the qualified audit opinions. The project has its own accounting system, which does not reconcile with the country’s or HQ accounting systems. Neither set of accounts is correct. Ever-increasing legal claims are mounting and significantly impacting financial results and audit opinions. The client has received the qualified audit opinions for the last four years. There are language and collaboration issues between the different people at HQ, the country and the client.
The solution: Take over the communication and reporting to the external auditors for the country and project. Convince the Big Four auditors to change their audit team structure and to rely on the work completed by another Big Four firm, which audits the project each year. Determine how the project balances should be accounted for and agree on the methodology with the auditors. The plan to recruit locally better finance staff fails to materialise. Therefore, we proceed with plan B and partially offshore the accounting team to create a bilingual French and English team, primarily comprising UK-qualified accountants. This also reduces costs compared to recruiting locally and augments capability. Create a joint team comprising the 40-strong local finance staff, the offshore team, and selected individuals from the client’s headquarters. Validate and reconstruct both accounting systems to ensure they reconcile and produce reliable reporting. Maintain support and direct communication lines to the Board of Directors and Senior Management in the Head Office.
The Results: First unqualified audit opinion after four years. Accounting systems and records, which are the backbone for responding to the ongoing legal claims amounting to many millions of US dollars.
Bringing insight into income and negotiating an improved contract.
After demonstrating that a flagship project is loss-making, renegotiate the contract to prevent further losses and ensure its viability.
The problem: The country’s finance director does not understand the results he is receiving. The Board of Directors is seeing uncovered costs mounting and group results deteriorating. The new country management team are distracted by other legacy and personal safety issues. The project management team and country team are disjointed. There is little capability to address the issues internally.
The solution: Conduct a quick analysis to identify the root causes of the country and the head office producing unreliable financial figures. Establish why specific targets are not achievable. Review possibilities to improve results immediately and within the short term. Share possible options with the country team and Board of Directors. Report on the progress of the agreed actions and identify where progress has not been made and why. This allows management to take the actions which are required.
When the opportunity presents itself, together with the COO, a different approach to dealing with the customer means a much-improved contract is negotiated.
The results: Clarity on actual results allows the organisation to plan and manage its financial results. A clear road map toward solving the problems is delivered. Contractual terms reduce unrecovered costs by 90%.
Other Hans Interim Assignments
Forensic investigation lead
Lead the complex investigation by recruiting external investigators across several regions, managing their deliverables and reporting to the C-suite. This is one of the more challenging Hans Interim Assignments completed during a two year period.
Finance director
Interim country finance director and working with the interim country director to stabilise the country while recruiting a permanent finance director to take over. This assignment took six months.
Head of the Internal Audit Department
Taking care of the internal audit department during a large-scale reorganisation of the organisation. This assignment took 18 months.