Auditing – the activity of someone independent examining the financial report of an organisation – has become renowned as a highly paper-based and time-consuming process for businesses in Africa and across the world.

But a company called CQS Technology Holdings in South Africa plans to make part of that process faster, as it says it is bringing an online auditing software solution to firms and financial institutions throughout the continent.

CQS has partnered with a US online audit service company, called Confiration.com, which specialises in digitising one of the final phases of the auditing process: obtaining written confirmations.

This part of the process – which involves, for example, asking a debtor to confirm the amount they owe an organisation – is typically conducted by third parties, such as banks, and also companies that either owe the business money or which are owed money by the business.

And because this process is largely manual, it could take up to three working weeks to complete as auditors wait for confirmations, says Ryan Mer, a director at CQS.

Mer says that Confirmation.com digitises this part of the auditing process, from the initial request and validation to the authorisation by the client, as well as receiving the final confirmation from the bank.

And the company plans to make the service available for the first time to auditing firms and financial institutions in SA and other African nations such as Nigeria and Kenya.

“It has been a global problem that when auditors request confirmations of their clients' balances - and various other details - it has resulted in huge challenges for both auditors as well as the banks,” says Mer.

“Among the main challenges are the risks of having all clients banking details as well as authorised signatories floating about on paper requests in an unsecure environment,” he adds.

ITWeb Africa spoke to financial experts that welcome the product. However, they also say that any software that potentially shortens the process would only be a small part of the battle won against the larger war against piles of documents.

A financial manager of a small-sized company has told ITWeb Africa that his company has to provide two lever-arch sized files of paper-work in what is a “long-winded” process.

“They [auditors] have to have proof of everything,” says the expert.

He added that there are already software companies in existence that do automate some of the auditing processes. But he says that documents that are stored on these programs still have to printed, because “somebody signs them off.”

He further says that the speed of the process also depends on the accounting standards of each firm, and that if a business’ internal systems are a shambles, the process could still take a long period of time, regardless of any automation.

But according to Mer, Confirmation.com focuses on just a small, but “painful” part of the entire auditing process.

“This software isn’t an entire function. It’s only one of the processes in an audit function,” he notes.

“The auditors are still absolutely going to have to go to their clients; they’re still going to have to perform the audit as they would generally do,” he adds.

Prices for using Confirmation.com in Africa are not yet available, but in the US it costs $23 per confirmed account, with the prices being capped at five accounts.