How Origin Bank Reduced Staff Reporting Time by 87% with AuditBoard

In our Spotlight on Success series, David Harrison, Chief Audit Executive for Origin Bank, shares how his team leverages AuditBoard’s intuitive, connected platform to establish a single system of record and boost stakeholder alignment. Hear how this regional bank headquartered in Louisiana gained significant efficiencies by:

• Cutting staff reporting time by 87% for preparing routine staff production reports, decreasing from 16 hours to 2 hours. 
• Eliminating version control issues by centralizing documentation in a single source of truth. 
• Streamlining communication between the audit team, internal stakeholders, and external auditors. 

Tell us about your role at Origin Bank, and the challenges you experienced prior to implementing AuditBoard?

My name is David Harrison, and I’m the Chief Audit Executive for Origin Bank. I’ve been with Origin now for about four years. When I first came, we were using another audit software package that was several years old and had not been updated to what you see in current audit software systems. After working with that software for about one year, I determined that it was in the bank’s best interest to look for an alternative.

How has AuditBoard helped make reporting less cumbersome and time-consuming?

Some of the features of AuditBoard that we have thoroughly enjoyed are the ability to create the internal audit report very, very quickly and the ability to create production reports on how efficient the staff is. It’s a process that previously would take about 16 hours — currently, it takes two hours in AuditBoard. 

How has AuditBoard’s connected platform eliminated version control issues and enabled your team to collaborate with multiple stakeholders?

The staff has found many uses for the WorkStream feature of AuditBoard, which allows us to request the items that we’ll be needing for the audit in advance of the audit. The users have found it very easy to use for uploading documentation, and the audit staff has found it very easy to use when they certify or accept what the auditee has sent us — having the documents automatically uploaded into the specific step. 

One feature that’s extremely useful for all parties involved has been the audit log, which I find to be very exceptional. It gives a date and timestamp for any changes that have been made and tells you who is making those changes. 

As administrators of AuditBoard, we’re able to control who has access and what level that access is. In addition to our SOX function, we also have given the bank’s external auditors the ability to go in and read those process narratives, as well as the SOX controls. The external auditors have found that the audit log is very helpful. They can find dates when a control has been modified and that effective date for that control, as well as having all the parties work off the same process narrative. If we determine that a process changes and that narrative needs to be updated, the SOX department will go in and make those changes, and all of the parties — internal audit, SOX department, as well as the external auditors — will see those modifications immediately, and can see when and who those changes were made by. 

What would you tell other audit teams considering investing in a software solution?

When I talk to peers, I think that practically any size audit shop — certainly any shop with two or more individuals — in order to maximize the audit function, you really need to use an audit software system to gain the efficiencies we need to do our job in this ever-changing environment. We’ve been pleased — it’s not uncommon for me to say that we are very thrilled with AuditBoard, and over the number of years, I’ve used several different audit software packages. Now, it’s at the top.