Work with top notch professionals as you plan and execute key strategies to enhance your company’s growth, competitiveness and profitability. With specialized services for both public and privately-held organizations, we offer a wide array of consulting services to help you size up opportunities, complete significant transactions, manage risk, and improve your bottom line. We put our 30 plus years of experience to work for you in many ways.

NetSuite Implementation Services
Enterprise Risk Management
Internal Controls for Financial Reporting
Internal Audit
Information Technology (IT)
Statement of Auditing Standards (SAS 70)
Due Diligence and Related Services
GAAP/SEC Guidance and Compliance
Placement Services

Identifying, assessing, and managing the risks that affect your day-to-day operations is a significant undertaking. Without it, you could be losing money where you shouldn’t. At Hein & Associates LLP, our process examines multiple areas of your operations, striving to improve overall performance. The result is a greater return on your bottom line.

Our professionals offer objectivity, world-class business expertise, and broad multi-industry experience. We take the time to learn about your business. Whether you are addressing risk in conjunction with compliance work or by itself to achieve greater financial effectiveness, we offer multiple solutions tailored to fit your needs. We not only measure the risk you may be incurring, but also implement the processes and controls that enable continued monitoring.

We offer a variety of solutions to address risk and drive a greater return on investment:

• Education Regarding Evaluation Criteria
• Stress Tests (What if Scenarios)
• Strategic and Operational Risk Evaluations
• Risk/Fraud and Control Assessments
• ERM Rating Process, Criteria, and Quality Scores
• Benchmarking Services
• Risk Mitigation Programs

Creating, documenting, and testing your internal controls system from a "top-down," risk-based approach is a significant undertaking for any company. However, it is an essential task to ensure that they are reliable and verifiable. We offer a wide-range of support for meeting compliance, as well as ongoing assistance when you update your control system to accommodate organizational changes and support for subsequent testing in future years.

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX 404) added a new and complex set of reporting requirements for public companies. With one of the largest public company practices in the nation, Hein & Associates LLP is uniquely qualified to assist your company with complying with SOX 404. Our audit background allows us to offer experienced, objective, and independent resources that will reduce your external audit costs under Accounting Standard No. 5 (AS 5).

Our thorough and efficient process of evaluating your internal controls includes:

• Project planning, implementation, and coordination
• Design and documentation of internal controls
• Information and communication systems
• Testing
• Ongoing Monitoring

An internal audit process is a substantial investment for any organization, and you deserve to derive greater value from it. Our approach to internal audit transforms a traditionally tactile and reactive function to a more strategic one that impacts financial effectiveness and regulatory compliance, drives operational excellence, and pro-actively manages risk. Our Hybrid™ Risk Assessment expands on mandatory SOX 404 compliance work by factoring in 22 additional attributes that identify a company’s overall risk.

By recalibrating your internal audit process to spotlight your areas of highest operational risk, we can help you to realize a greater return on your internal audit. The benefits of our process include management of financial, operational, and technological-related risks, process improvement and efficiency, and internal control monitoring. Our professionals can also assist with quality assessment and readiness reviews, customized project and vendor audits, fraud assessment and prevention techniques, and industry best practices. They strive to not only assess risk, but also improve your overall operational performance. Our internal audit services include:

• Audit Program Development
• Three-Year Evergreen Plans
• Specialized Audits, including Joint Interest and Contract Audits

Your business makes a substantial investment every year in its information technology (IT) systems, and maximizing its value is important to the long-term success of the enterprise. Whether analyzing the way your systems and applications are configured and utilized by the business, looking at the IT processes and their impact on the business, or assisting in the selection of a new application and system, we tailor our services to meet your needs in creating an IT function that is the best it can be.

In addition to technology expertise, our IT professionals boast solid financial backgrounds and can offer a practical perspective of your technology systems. We utilize our broad range of industry expertise to approach IT from a business intelligence standpoint, striving for a system that enhances real-time decision making while ensuring regulatory compliance and minimized risk. We also assist in the selection of providers to implement upgrades and new systems. From outlining risks such as time delays and cost overruns to selecting software packages and suggesting controls, we manage every aspect of the work these vendors provide. We offer a full line of technology services to optimize your IT investment:

• IT Risk Assessment and Audit
• IT Best Practice Benchmarking
• Software Selection and Evaluation
• System and Application Security Assessment
• Disaster Recovery/ Business Continuity
• Internal Reporting Services

A SAS 70 report offers an efficient means to enhance your image as a quality service provider. They offer assurance to the client companies that you serve − as well as their external auditors − that your internal control objectives over relevant systems, services, and the underlying information technology, are being met.

By means of a SAS 70 report, our team will provide an opinion on whether (1) your description of controls is fairly presented and placed into operation, (2) the controls are suitably designed to meet the objectives, and (3) the controls are operating efficiently (Type II only). These reports are utilized by your clients’ external auditors to confirm their understanding of your internal control environment. We conduct two types of SAS 70 Reports:

Type I:
Outlines the organization’s controls at a specific period of time. It includes our opinion on whether the controls are fairly presented, suitably designed, and placed in service as of a specified date.

Type II:
More comprehensive than the Type I Report, and usually covers a period of six months or more. It provides your company with everything a Type I report does, as well as an assessment of the operating effectiveness of the controls over a period of time.

Readiness Assessment
Prior to commencement of the SAS 70, Hein & Associates LLP can conduct a Readiness Assessment, looking at your current processes and controls as they relate to the control objectives that are under evaluation. We can provide you with guidance on the types of controls we anticipate assessing, an understanding of the type of evidence we expect to evaluate, and feedback on controls we feel should be strengthened. In addition to helping your company understand the audit, this also ensures a smoother transition into the evaluation period.

We have been providing due diligence and quality of earnings reports to both public and private companies for over 30 years. Our planned approach assures a thorough and cost-effective review, and our analysis is coordinated with other legal or technical advisors who may be assisting you in the matter. Many of our professionals have owned companies or spent portions of their careers in corporate positions such as CFO or CEO. They bring practical experience, as well as analytical knowledge, to every engagement, and work with you to choose the areas that require our attention and then establish the scope of the review:

• Review of accounting procedures, financial statements, systems and controls
• Analysis of both historical and projected cash flows, earnings, and capital expenditures
• Review of internal audit procedures
• Review of regulatory issues
• Report on tax consequences
• Evaluation of past tax returns
• Examination of known and potential liabilities
• Examination of information technology systems to evaluate reliability of financial information
• Evaluation of key operational processes

Keeping pace with complex regulatory requirements for financial reporting presents significant challenges for most companies. Research consumes staff resources, and errors in application can result in a material weakness of internal controls. Let Hein & Associates LLP’s thirty years of experience help you remain in compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules and the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

We tailor our services to meet your needs, assisting you either before or after you have prepared your financial statements. You choose from two basic approaches:

Preventative – Our professionals work alongside your staff to perform the necessary research, determine the conclusions, and make final decisions on the application of rules prior to you creating the financial statements.

Detective – Our professionals perform the research and provide an in-depth review of your financial statements after the initial draft has been created. This method provides for minimal interruptions to your staff.

Hiring finance and accounting professionals is a challenging and time-consuming process for any organization. The financial livelihood of your company is at stake and we understand that you want to choose from the best available candidates. Let the recruitment professionals at Hein & Associates LLP assist you with finding and hiring the most qualified individuals in the market. Whether you are seeking a CEO, CFO, VP of Finance, Controller, Director of Internal Audit, or simply a Staff Accountant, we attract and have access to a large and powerful network of accounting and finance professionals.

We begin our placement process by meeting with key decision makers at your organization to determine the best search method and to become familiar with both the hiring position and your work culture. We can also assist with writing job descriptions as well as negotiating compensation. In addition, we will screen, interview, and check references. Our search fee is contingent upon you hiring a suitable candidate, and every candidate we place is backed by a 90-day guarantee. With our personalized and streamlined process, you gain the ability to hire the most qualified individuals with a lower turnover rate, while concentrating more of your time on what you do best – running your company.