Reliance on third parties for critical services is essential in today’s business world, but many organisations struggle to realise the expected value from these relationships.

Establishing the right contracts and a robust governance framework can optimise outcomes and provide a competitive advantage.

Project owners and contract managers need assurance that third parties will deliver key services and effectively control costs. But how can you be sure these risks and assurances are managed properly, especially across large and complex projects?

How we can help

Our risk advisory services team offers comprehensive contracting lifecycle services to mitigate risk and enhance the value achieved through their programs and relationships involving contracts.

As independent financial auditors, we maintain an objective view to assure all contract parties that only valid and agreed-upon project costs are recorded and claimed. This also includes reviewing contract and vendor management programs and revisiting terms and conditions to create further value for money.

Contract assurance and advisory services

BDO’s experts provide major infrastructure projects with independent assurance and specialist advisory services through the procurement, delivery, and operations phases.

Setting projects up for success

Organisations are regularly taking on major projects, engaging multiple contractors, to deliver significant infrastructure. Protection against delays, cost overruns, waste and irregularities on these construction and infrastructure projects are essential.

BDO supports a range of clients across various industry sectors with project advisory and contract assurance services through our specialised contract assurance and advisory team.

In the current economic climate, lenders and investors have become less tolerant of project delays and cost overruns. Independent and objective scrutiny of project costs and project progress can make a significant difference to outcomes. It is no longer a luxury, but rather a strategic imperative, to have independent advice when ensuring the successful outcome of an infrastructure project and receiving the full value for dollars spent.

For an infrastructure delivery project to perform at optimum levels, it is of vital importance that an audit program is set up to help address any potential areas of contractual conflict or non-compliance.

An assurance framework should be established to ensure that payments to project partners are made in accordance with the terms of the project agreement and that there are no discrepancies relating to ongoing project costs incurred or reimbursement at actual cost.

We achieve this through independent financial audits on the full open book accounting principle.

How BDO can help

BDO has delivered a significant number of independent financial audits on major infrastructure projects across Australia over the past 15 years.

Our risk-based, enterprise-wide solutions deliver:

An integrated solution that focuses on monetary findings but can also address other key aspects of contracts including vendor relationship management, project management, cost control management, and various other aspects of the internal control environment

A measurable return on investment (ROI) based upon monetary findings realised (e.g. erroneous billings around time, material, overhead allocations, and other non- applicable charges), erroneous overpayments (e.g. duplicate payments, potential collusion leading to overpayments etc.), incorrect member payments, and renegotiated contracts not applied on invoices.