Radio Host: Every Wednesday BKM Sowan Horan comes in here, today we are so blessed to have Rick Sowan and Kevin Rockecharlie in here from IT Audit, did I get the company right? Rick Sowan: Correct Yes Radio Host: There you go, alright. Let s talk about data, that that companies have and they kind of under utilizing the ability to monitor everything in their company to really manage what they have because like you mentioned in the break when you are in the forest, sometimes it s hard to see the trees and it takes someone like you guys to just to make sure that they utilize everything, buts lets before we get to that let s work really quickly if you are new to the show, ah, let s let s tell everybody what your company does right now. Rick Sowan: BKM Sowan Horan is located in Addison, Texas. We also have offices in Austin and Puerto Rico. We are a full service accounting firm providing audit tax and consulting services to both large and small public and private companies in Dallas and really across United States. Uumh we utilize big data because, we we also we work with sophisticated businesses that have massive amounts of information that we can utilize and hopefully show to our clients,the benefits of understanding that information. Radio Host: Let s talk about what type of information are we looking at. Rick Sowan: It s a soft data electronic information, most financial systems, most companies have IT systems to capture financial accounting records, they capture the points of sale, they might capture manufacturing data, in the case of health care might be electronic records..or we can have utility companies that have meter readings and other types of information that are captured on their on their customers and and that massive amount of information can be mined and understood for all the information that might provide benefits to somebody else to might bring value to that company. Radio Host: Alright, cool, now Kevin, I will bring you on the this is what you do everyday. Kevin Rockecharlie: Right, right this is my skill set and you know that being said, in today 2016, all of our information is stored electronically for the most part, I mean we are not seeing file cabinets in companies anymore for the most part other than, I mean we are going away from paper bills, so guys the data is there. And and in our business the financial auditing,consulting and tax work that we do we have access to that data provided to us by our clients and so that gives us an opportunity quite often to look at things from a different perspective. Umm.. and our organization, our firm has the skill set and capability to work with businesses of all size to help understand that data and help provide value, to our clients in various shapes and form. We spend a lot of time due to financial audit and that is a good foray into initially meeting with our companies and getting that relationship. Those relationships then blossom into lots of consulting opportunities just by the nature of being the trusted adviser that we are. Radio Host: And it seems like as technology has advanced this is becoming more and more common for people to utilize this data because it s kind of interesting enough for you said that the days of filing cabinets are over, that saves you a square footage in your office, you don t need, you know that reduces your overhead in your costs. Rick Sowan: And..and Most people and most companies now are scanning all of their bills and all their information into their accounting system, well that that information can be actually umm..you can have optical recognition where you can actually read the information on a PDF of information and so you can glean a lot of information from even just clients bills that have been stored in their system.
Kevin Rockecharlie: Absolutely, so the data is there and I will tell you years ago, let s say 10 years ago, companies we reluctant to provide you the full amount of their data, giving you short access to their database because they didn t really understand it, I will tell you,we ran into, even today in 2016, we run into organizations that still look at technology as a black box.they don t really recognize the value that s stored away inside,and the term degeorges The Data, you know, but again this has been around for a long time. The original organizations that were taken advantage of big data right or the Fortune 100 the Fortune 500, ah they had the treasure trolls of data and they had the tons of people to go through it they had the data endless and somethings like this, well this is now creeping down to the smaller businesses, you know, outside of the Fortune 500 and firms like our have the skill set and capability to work with our clients and obtain value from their data not only for the work that we are doing in the compliant space but even in the consulting space as well. Radio Host: Yeah, Rick I was gonna ask you the size of companies everyone has got data. Kevin Rockecharlie: Everybody. Radio Host: 5 to 500 plus. Rick Sowan: They can be a five million dollar company or they can be a five hundred million dollar company. They have massive amounts of information. And from our auditing perspective, because that s, we deal with a lot of auditing we do a lot of financial statement and auditing,we are very efficient from the outer perspective because if we can we don t use just necessarily a lot of people, we kind of, we tried to use an approach like, I hate to use the example and say NSA but you got all this information you can scan it, read it, determine attributes that could be present, that might be, that might affect your financial statement audit. Then you can do that electronically as opposed to have a bunch of people reading through a bunch computer printouts and readouts. Kevin Rockecharlie: And not only that it provides an opportunity to identify outliers which a lot people like call fraud. And so Rick Sowan: Realistically, fraud is a big is a big issue. Kevin Rockecharlie: Very big issue and so umm there are basic techniques that you can apply towards this big data, and let s call it small data in some organizations, we can get after that data and we can find those outliers and we can look for things that look strange and within an entire population with a full day to set if we are looking at this year financial records, last years financial records we just start mining that data and looking for things that just look funny and quite often this techniques apply across many organizations or undoubtedly uncover something that you didn t know was there. Radio Host: Rick Sowan from BKM Sowan Horan with us and Kevin Rockecharlie from IT Audit talking about big data, now, umm I can t imagine like you go back into the days like 20 years ago, when data storage I guess wasn t as common as big as it is now a guy like you would have been taken through file cabinets I mean very time consuming. Rick Sowan: Yes, very time consuming, and that s, you know, we were very fast to recognize the benefits of actually looking at electronic information. Some of our competitors don t necessarily value that because we are basically a people s business. So if you use technology you might not have the same number of people that you needed in order to look at all those file cabinets and paper records that you needed back in the day. But we try to utilize the electronic information that was present in our clients system so that we could we could we could do it efficiently. Radio Host: Rick Sowan from BKM Sowan Horan with us and Kevin Rockecharlie from IT Audit talking about big data, now, umm I can t imagine like you go back into the days like 20 years ago, when data storage I guess wasn t as common as big as it is now a guy like you would have been taken through file cabinets I mean very time consuming.
Rick Sowan: Yes, very time consuming, and that s, you know, we were very fast to recognize the benefits of actually looking at electronic information. Some of our competitors don t necessarily value that because we are basically a people s business. So if you use technology you might not have the same number of people that you needed in order to look at all those file cabinets and paper records that you needed back in the day. But we try to utilize the electronic information that was present in our clients system so that we could we could we could do it efficiently. Rick Sowan: We could look at massive amount of information as opposed to just 50 items or 60 items and the try to draw a conclusion from a small sample. And,now we have the entire population we have no reason not to find, and Kevin raises a great example with the Madoff. Had somebody really gone in and just looked in at the electronic information that may have supported those records. They would have found that immediately, and we have probably saved some people a few billion dollars. Radio Host: Absolutely, it s cool, cool.good stuff here, interesting. And I would imagine once you guys do in audit get in there and really dig deep. You are able to trim a lot of fat off, off somethings and uncover some potential problems that didn t know existed. Rick Sowan: Absolutely. Radio Host: Which in the long run saves them money. Kevin Rockecharlie: Right. You know, and depending on the type business it is, you know, in the retail business fraud could be, you know 2-3% of your revenue and if you can cut that in half, if you can cut your fraud from 3% to 1.5% just think how much actual income that puts to your bottom line. It s well worth the effort if you just think about the potential benefit, it s well worth your effort. Radio Host: So if someone is listening right now and they are like, wait a minute, this sound pretty interesting, how can someone get hold of you? Rick Sowan: They need to go to our website at bkmsh.com where all our bios, and Kevin s bios, are listed on our website, and it describing our services that we render to our clients.so go to our website www.bkmsh.com or call our main number 214-545-3965. Radio Host: I am imagining, this time of the year you guys, are you always busy? Rick Sowan: We are busy. Radio Host: You are always busy, you just had the, you had deadline this past Friday, it was the Rick Sowan: The W2 and W1099. Radio Host: Yeah, yeah.. Rick Sowan: We deal with deadlines, that s all our whole business but but our focus is really making sure our clients are taken care of and that nothing comes out of the woodwork or out if the background that surprises them and that requires us to stay on top of lot of different things, whether it is deadlines, or financial reporting. Radio Host: Absolutely. Alright let s take a quick break we will come back we have more with Rick and Kevin here and will also get into my telemedicine.com, it s become the future of healthcare and it s kind of connection you and you doctor plus Go Red for Women they are here as well, they got a launch coming up tomorrow and its course of Friday it s National Wear Red day so Rick I expect a red suit from you. Rick Sowan: Absolutely. Radio Host: Red skinny suit. (Laughing) Rick Sowan: I will be wearing at least something. Radio Host: (laughing). Alright we will be right back. Radio Host: 8:30 right here on 620AM KEXB are experts in business, we should continue our conversation with Rick Sowan, BKM Sowan Horan and Kevin Rockecharlie as well.
Now we are talking about big data and how to utilize big data in order to really, kind of maximize your productivity in a company and minimize any type of loss or fraud that might be there cause you going to expose that fraud through the big data, analysis and getting in there and understanding it, now i know that this is something a lot of people within their own company, they don t have time to deal with this, and they really don t, they just want to to run their company. So getting guys like you to come there and do it, that s what it's all about. Kevin Rockecharlie: Right, you know they, they spend a lot of time taking in orders and getting other orders out the door and to be quite honest with you, you know that s why we hire specialists, you hire somebody that good at doing the thing that they do and that s who we are. Radio Host: That s who you are, and that s just one of the aspects, but let s just talk really quick really quick all the other stuff that you guys do cause you specialize in a lot of services. Rick Sowan: Yeah, we do financial auditing, obviously taxation both international and domestic. Ah, we also have business evaluation and litigation support and IT assurance where we can help clients with IT related matters or litigation if they have, if they have some business disputes, we can assist and I have talked about a fatal area for data, big datas litigation because most clients records are electronic and when you are in litigation and people wanna try to get to your data that s sensitive information because they can mine that and try to use that against you, so it s good to know what s in your data to protect yourself from people that might have adverse that you might an adverse relationship with. Radio Host: Sure, all through the process of selling your company it s great to have that data, cause it kind of backs up and supports your, you know what you think you company is worth, and you have got history on it it just not all, you know hear say it s not willy nilly it s for confirmed information. Rick Sowan: Correct. Kevin Rockecharlie: Absolutely. Rick Sowan: And in mergers and acquisitions, which we do quite bit of, most of of the acquirers will come in and try to look at data and try to glean that information for things about the company, the target company and if you have the information at the fingertips then you look like a company that really understands their business and that provides more value to you ultimately in a transaction, like that. Radio Host: Alright then, stuff there. And like we said, years ago this wouldn t even be a topic but I think that is the future, like you said Kevin when we first started, more and more people are, you know storing this data is the way for the future. Kevin Rockecharlie: Oh absolutely, and in my prior experience, I worked for very large fortune 500 companies and I was exposed to the ability to capture that data in the sense that we had all the storage but that storage was very expensive so moving down the ladder, moving down outside of the Fortune 500 now, I mean we have organizations of all sizes that have been collecting data for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and they have those records and there is a lot that can be gleaned from that information and I will tell you that they may be capturing that information in a point of sale or just making their financial statements. Kevin Rockecharlie: But there is a lot of information there that they may not put on a financial reporting system they have not put a management reporting system that allows them to see things that they would not otherwise see.
And not only that, specialists like myself and Rick, we can then work with those organizations to look at it from a different perspective looking for things that we know how to look for including the aspects of fraud because we the eye, we are there everyday. Radio Host: Yeah, cause you got the eye, you know what to look for, the signs. Kevin Rockecharlie: And the other great things is that we are in so many different industries that to us, you know, are the organizations we work with it s just another organizations that we can apply our skills at against. Radio Host: There you go. Rick Sowan: Alright, and it doesn t matter what type of business its is data is data, cause it s got the same filters it doesn t matter if its, doesn t matter if its a healthcare company or a distributor, it s still data and its exercising also. Radio Host: Alright, good stuff. Ahh contact information for you guys, once again the website Rick Sowan: www.bkmsh.com and located in Addison, Austin and Puerto Rico and our number is 214-545-3965. Radio Host: Great.
Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH)