Top Three Priorities
The top priority in all mergers relate to:
- People — One of the most critical criteria of successful M&A and growth strategies is getting the new leadership team right. Our assessment is a pivotal piece of our practice in connecting the right behavioural dynamics for long-term success.
- Money — It is essential that financial reporting is accurate. Valuations are often a multiple of profit. If an error creates more profit than is there you're paying an extra five to eight time the size of the error extra. We examine every transaction 27 different ways using artificial intelligence. Others sample three percent of transactions. Which method do you think is more likely to find the error?
- Governance — alignment of goals, allocations of resources based on the contribution of the goal to the strategy, and driving performance pay in alignment with strategy
Our insights prepare you for tomorrow. We offer strategy and analytics for evidence-based decision-making related to people, money, and governance:
- Financial analytics powered by the Ai Auditor™ — uncovering material errors using artificial intelligence
- Governance Analytics powered by GAP™ — aligning operations to achieve a strategy
- Talent Analytics powered by SuccessFinder™ — predicting career success and job fit
Leadership
One of the most important criteria of successful M&A and growth strategies is getting the new leadership team right. We connect the right behavioral dynamics for long term success.”
Our talent analytics can predict success with 85% reliability for all corporate roles. In addition, we can assess if the players can work together and that you have the cognitive diversity for remarkable growth.
- Always On: Only two behaviors from manager to C-Suite
- Leap: “Bridging” behaviors for moving between each management level
- Lead: Unique behaviors for every stage of management
- Leave Behinds: The “once and done” list— good only for where you are, not where you’re going
Successful mergers require getting the right leadership team in place as soon as possible. We offer our services worldwide.
Best-Fit Staffing
Want to know if the new staff are high performers?
How likely are they to exceed expectations?
Use Our Best-Fit Staffing Process and Find Out
Best fit employees can produce four times the productivity of average employees. We can predict the likelihood that a candidate will meet and exceed expectations with 85% reliability. We assess candidates against benchmarks of high performers in the same role. You know that you are genuinely getting a top performer. You will discover the hidden gems that are now part of the merged entity. We show you how to link talent to value for critical roles.
It takes about 90 days per management layer to get the organization in place. With seven levels of management, it will take you almost two years for the dust to settle. Using our analytics and best-fit staffing process you can reduce this period to 90 days in total. We identify the best-fit for everyone from top to bottom.
Also, we can provide your employees who will be transitioning to a new role with a tailored development plan based on their unique behavioural profile.
Anomalies in financial transactions and GLs tell a lot about a company’s character
One of the critical aspects of the whole process is the financial part of the Due Diligence study. It consists in thorough analysis and assessment of ledgers to precisely and reliably present the current company situation and make it easier for the investors to understand the character of the company's operation in financial and operational terms. The specialists conducting the process look into the company's balance sheet and income as well as the cash flow statement. A detailed review of these financial documents makes it possible, i.e., to fully understand the business entity's capital structure and the character of its finance sources, which may result in the easier identification of areas for future restructuring or streamlining. Using the Ai Auditor, you can gain insight on 100% of the transactions. We look at everyone in 27 different ways.
The Financial Due Diligence carried out based on the analysis of information made available also aims to determine both past and future, expected results and the company's financial condition, as well as to assess its forecasts and plans, identifying its main future growth factors. Furthermore, the analysis comprises the price-setting methodology and the structure of future revenues and expenditures. A small investment in our technology could save you a significant amount on the purchase price.
Ultimately, the goal of the whole process of the financial part of Due Diligence is to normalize and determine the company's results so that the possibility of one-off, extraordinary events are eliminated. It is particularly crucial given the following evaluation of the enterprise, as such activities may considerably impact its outcome. Owing to the varied methods of assessment (e.g. the multiplies method or the discounted cash flow method) used to establish the investment's value, the normalization process involves any costs impacting the operational outcome (EBITDA), depreciation, the volume of working capital, the cash flow statement, as well as other key factors.
The Due Diligence process, due to its inherent comprehensiveness and labour intensity, often turns out to be a difficult and time-consuming one - not only for the entity conducting it but also the company is the object of the study. It is a process whose importance cannot be underestimated. The Due Diligence analysis is the best way to identify possible threats and opportunities for the potential transaction even before it is finalized, which as a result often makes it possible to avoid the wrong decisions in the area of acquisition and consolidation of companies.
For Investment Bankers
Financial due diligence is a vital element of any deal. Our business risk assessment service provides information to strengthen an investment banker’s teaser about the portfolio company's performance and outlook to all potential buyers. It gives the investment banker with confidence that anomalies in financial information are known and addressed before they become deal breakers.
For Purchasers
Our financial risk assessment service does a deeper dive than has ever been possible.
- We look at 100% of the financial transactions in the general ledger for the entire testing period, ideally the past three years of company operations plus the year-to-date information.
- We strategically direct your financial due diligence to investigate anomalies.
- Our service can save you more than 20% of the cost of your financial due diligence effort, while dramatically improving its thoroughness.
During your financial due diligence process, you will find risks within the company, including capital structure, working capital and CapEx forecasts. Additionally, your due diligence reviews the company's business plan, projections and financial ratios. All of these depend on reliable and correct reporting of financial information.
EBIT and EBITDA are often normalized during financial due diligence, by adjusting reported numbers for unusual events such as the divestiture of a subsidiary. The investment bank likely used the fixed amount for the valuation. These adjustments rely on the correct financial information in the first place.
Hiring financial advisers to conduct financial, legal and tax due diligence is expensive to potential buyers. Knowing that the financial books are in good shape before you start the process and being able to point financial advisers to the anomalies in the books before they enter the data room, is a huge time-saver.
The quality of the review is increased, Our approach typically cuts the cost of financial due diligence by more than 20%
Our governance analytics — produced by our Goal Alignment Program — can model the post-merger organization. Its contribution-based budget can set expectations for the merged entity and set you on a path to quickly gain the benefits of the acquisition.
Our talent analytics — produced by SuccessFinder — enables you to assess the talent that you are going to acquire. It allows you to make sure you keep the valuable expertise.
Learn More
MindBridge Ai Auditor is a revolutionary approach to analyze financial transactions to detect anomalies - unintentional and intentional - by automating manual processes and providing a risk-based assessment to help organizations ensure compliance and minimize their exposure to financial loss and liability.
Key Benefits:
MindBridge AI Auditor - Enhancing Profesional Judgement
The MindBridge AI Auditor is bridging the gap between human and artificial intelligence (AI) by enhancing professional judgment across multiple industries. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have enabled a new class of converged analytics to analyze financial transaction flows and better detect anomalies - unintentional mistakes/errors and intentional.
Using algorithms based on data science, MindBridge generates actionable insights through an interactive, user-friendly visual interface to help organizations minimize risk exposure to the financial loss while supporting audit professionals to meet and exceed regulatory and industry standards. The MindBridge application has been tested by industry leading professionals and is proven to detect unusual human activities and transactions that incumbent systems cannot.
Financial Transactions Analysis, Evolved
The tools currently used to analyze financial transactions are not keeping pace with the needs of today’s auditor and investigator professionals. Existing computer-assisted audit tools are often time-consuming to use and do not provide the insights and analytics required to help effectively advise auditors or develop a comprehensive financial analysis. MindBridge offers intelligent audit technology to help increase the speed and accuracy of every audit and investigation.
Comprehensive analysis for accurate audits
Current audit and investigative techniques are limited by time and tools, restricting the financial analysis to random sampling and data filtering. What if you could review every financial transaction in the general ledger from every entry across every department?
With MindBridge there is no data set too large, meaning the system is capable of reviewing 100% of the data provided and calculating a risk score for every process or person that interacts with corporate data. This is how you can find more instances of financial misstatements suspicious financial discrepancies.
Intelligent anomaly detection to help you:
- Uncover more misstatements & potential fraud by reviewing 100% of corporate data
- Know where to look due to intelligent risk-scores
- Smarter control points that combine best practices and data science
- An intelligent system leveraging machine learning that adapts to your needs
Take financial audit efficiency to the next level
Automation is key to maximizing the effectiveness of each financial audit or review your organization performs. By removing manual processes, it is possible to streamline time-consuming activities, which frees up team members to use their expertise more effectively.
MindBridge’s Ai Auditor helps you be more efficient by offering:
- Smart data ingestion of your financial records saves you time importing and shaping data files
- Automated risk-scoring is based on a blend of control points and anomaly detection algorithms to help guide you to entries that appear suspicious
- Automated insights recommend similar items to look at and which steps to take next
Risk-based scoring
An unbiased analysis of each transaction history based on numerous control points and data science algorithms.
Accessibility
For maximum impact, the system is intuitive requiring little to no training meaning it can be used by anyone for the most basic of investigations, audits and all the way up to a forensic examination.
Intuitive dashboard
A visual summary of all transaction data and risk scores so that each auditor and investigator can determine where to focus instead of using sampling techniques alone.
Better Meet Audit Standards
- Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to meet and exceed standards including:
- SAS 99 Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit
- IAS 240 / CAS 240 The Auditor’s Responsibilities Relating to Fraud in an Audit of Financial Statements
- Know where to look due to intelligent risk-scores
Automatically assigns a risk score to all transactions to focus audit, 100% coverage of all transactions.
System Requirements:
Intacct Web Services, modern web-browser (Chrome or Firefox are preferable)
Price: contact: kim.allen@allenvisioninc.com
You can learn about how we use advanced financial compliance analytics to conduct a financial risk assessment in audit, internal audit and financial due diligence for merger and acquisition work.
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- MindBridge Ai-Auditor Journal Entry Testing CAS 240
- Municipal Best Practices - Preventing Fraud, Bribery and Corruption