Beyond a Better Workflow: How Suralink Helped PKF Littlejohn Revolutionise its Audit Engagement Experience

PKF Littlejohn was one of the countless accounting and professional firms that relied on the exact document and exchange ecosystem mentioned above. Even though the company had built its name as one of Britain’s largest and most prestigious accounting firms for 150 years, its auditors were still spending precious time merely keeping track of where documents were at in the process, let alone actually committing them to the goal they were in circulation for to begin with!

However, in addition to its high standard for excellence, PKF Littlejohn also espouses the aforementioned need for clarity and simplicity as one of its other core values. Thus, the firm redoubled its efforts to align its practices and client interactions more closely to that very important goal. In 2019, it found an opportunity to do so with Suralink. 

After reaching a formal agreement, PKF Littlejohn and Suralink began laying the groundwork for a meaningfully improved audit experience. PKF Littlejohn began by doing away with its previous tools and process in favour of Suralink’s streamlined, all-in-one portal. Until that point, PKF Littlejohn’s auditors had had to manually track documents and constantly check in with the clients on the other end of the engagement to see where everything was at, which added up to an astronomical amount of extra time and management effort.

But Suralink’s portal enables every participant in the engagement to see precisely where documents are at, update their status, and view comments made by other users. As one can imagine, this resulted in not ‘just’ a much cleaner document management process, but gave every participant much more time back with which to process the actual audit.

“Information requests are much easier to follow with Suralink,” said Karen Egan, a director within the firm. “Being able to see exactly when the client has uploaded information is great, and it’s extremely helpful that we can respond to individual documents with queries or clarifications.”

The usage of an all-in-one portal that streamlines the audit is a good in and of itself, of course, but its ultimate benefit is far greater than the sum of its parts. Thanks to the synchronised status capability and saved time afforded by Suralink’s platform, PKF Littlejohn’s auditors have seen a tremendous boost in productivity, client satisfaction, and new business opportunities. Suralink’s implementation also resulted in optimised resourcing, enhanced internal measurement, and a far greater capacity for catching and fixing errors.

The impact of these capabilities has been felt across the entire firm, as new workflows and increased efficiencies produce a meaningfully improved client experience. This success is desiloed across the entire firm, and empowers PKF Littlejohn to continue commanding its hard-won prestige and market share in the United Kingdom and beyond.

“With Suralink, the efficiency benefits are plain to see,” Egan added.

While PKF Littlejohn has enjoyed great success with the Suralink platform, that platform is capable of addressing the challenges and helping the clients of any firm large or small, local or international. Get in touch with one of our experts today to see that versatility in action firsthand!