Question 01
What kind of engagements does the firm take on?
The firm operates across five practice areas: Risk-Based Audit & Assurance, Cost Optimisation & Business Process Management, IT & Technology Audit, Tax/Legal/Regulatory, and ERP Process Management. Within these, the engagements that fit the firm best are those where the work is substantive enough to warrant partner-led attention, where the deliverable will be read by senior management or a board, and where the client values methodology rigour over scale of footprint.
Typical engagement examples include risk-based internal audits for listed Indian groups, co-source audit support for multinational subsidiaries operating in India, IT cost optimisation diagnostics, forensic and FCPA reviews, GST and ITC recovery diagnostics, SAP and ERP process management mandates, and audit-practice-development advisory for in-house functions building toward 2024 IIA Standards conformance.
Engagements are accepted on a curated basis. The firm does not pursue mandates where partner-led delivery cannot be honoured, or where the work is better suited to a different kind of firm.
Question 02
How is RKLCMA different from a Big-4 firm?
The honest answer is three things. First, the partner does the work. There is no leverage pyramid between the client and the analysis — the engagement letter, the data review, the fieldwork, the findings, and the closing memo all carry the same partner’s name. Second, the methodology depth is comparable while the engagement cost is materially lower — not because corners are cut, but because the firm operates without the overhead structure a Big-4 carries. Third, the firm declines work it cannot do well, which a Big-4 cannot afford to do at scale.
Where a Big-4 is the better answer — large-volume statutory audits, transaction advisory at IPO scale, opinions requiring the brand of a Big-4 for regulatory or investor reasons — the firm will say so. RKLCMA is not built to operate at that scale, and is not the right choice for those mandates.
Question 03
Who actually does the work on an engagement?
The partner whose name appears on the engagement letter is the partner who leads the work from scoping through to the closing memo. The firm’s 18-member professional team supports the partner on substantive analysis, data work, and fieldwork — never as a substitute for partner judgment, but as a multiplier of partner capacity on the parts of the engagement that genuinely need additional hands.
For multi-disciplinary engagements that touch two or more practice areas, the lead partner brings in the relevant co-partner directly. A risk-based audit with material IT-systems scope will be partner-led by Randhir on the audit side and co-led by Rajat on the technology side. A vendor due-diligence engagement with tax and legal implications will be partner-led by Randhir and co-led by Sanjay. The partner whose name is on the work is the partner who is in the room.
Question 04
How are engagements typically scoped and priced?
The firm prefers scope-anchored engagement letters over hour-anchored ones. A typical engagement begins with a no-cost first conversation directly with the relevant partner, followed by a scoping document setting out the work to be done, the deliverable to be produced, the timeline to deliver it, and a fixed fee against that scope. Where scope is genuinely uncertain at the outset — some forensic and cost diagnostics fall in this category — the firm structures the engagement in phases, with a defined fee for the first phase and a re-scoping decision point before continuing.
Fee benchmarks vary materially by scope and engagement type. A focused diagnostic typically runs over 4–8 weeks; a multi-stream SAP process management engagement may run over months or years. Fixed-fee scoping protects the client from cost overruns and protects the firm from scope creep — both of which are common in hour-anchored engagement models. Where the engagement requires capacity over time (such as a finance back-office or co-source audit retainer), monthly retainer arrangements are used.
Question 05
What does the firm not do?
The discipline of declining work is as important as the discipline of accepting it. The firm does not conduct statutory audit under the Companies Act — that is the province of a Chartered Accountancy firm, not a Cost and Management Accountancy firm. The firm does not provide valuation certifications for SEBI or RBI compliance purposes — that is the province of a Registered Valuer. The firm does not undertake transaction advisory work at IPO or M&A scale — that is the province of investment banks and Big-4 deal teams.
The firm also does not undertake large-volume outsourced bookkeeping at sub-professional rates, branded retainer-style sales of standardised templates, or any work where the deliverable would not bear the partner’s name with pride.
Where the right answer is a different kind of firm, the partner will say so directly and will, where useful, suggest the kind of firm to look for.
Question 06
How is confidentiality and conflicts handled?
Every substantive engagement begins with a mutual non-disclosure agreement executed before any client data is exchanged. This is the firm’s NDA-first operating principle and applies without exception — including to first conversations where the client wishes to discuss specifics before deciding whether to engage.
Conflict checks are conducted at the firm level before each new engagement is accepted. Where the firm is currently engaged with a party that has a competitive or counterparty interest with a prospective client, the firm will say so directly and will not accept the new engagement without explicit informed consent from both parties — or will decline. Independence in audit and forensic engagements is operationally protected by the same discipline, with engagement-letter terms making the independence position explicit.
Working papers, deliverables, and supporting evidence are held to audit-grade retention standards and are governed by the engagement letter post-completion. The firm does not aggregate or anonymise client data for marketing or research purposes without explicit consent.
Question 07
What is the firm’s view on AI in audit and finance?
AI and process automation are operationally relevant to the firm’s work in three specific places: reconciliation at scale (where the firm operates proprietary infrastructure for GST 2B-to-purchase-register matching and vendor-ledger reconciliation across mixed-ERP environments), pattern recognition in forensic analytics (Benford’s Law conformity testing, digit analysis, vendor-master anomaly detection), and exception-report generation for ERP control monitoring. In these areas AI is not a future capability; it is current operating infrastructure.
Beyond these specific applications, the firm is sceptical of generic “AI in audit” positioning that does not name a specific control objective or a specific framework. AI is a tool, not a methodology. The methodology is the IIA Professional Practices Framework, COSO, the ACFE approach, and the Indian statutory framework. AI accelerates execution against the methodology; it does not replace it. A finding that emerges from AI-driven analysis is still a finding that needs partner-level judgment about its significance, its root cause, and its remediation.
The firm’s Technology Advisory Partner, Rajat Tyagi, leads a separate practice (KNetAI / Agentic-X) specifically focused on enterprise AI and process automation. Where a client engagement warrants substantive AI implementation work alongside the audit or process management mandate, that capability is brought in directly.
A Question Not Covered Here?
Tell the partner directly. The questions above are the ones the firm hears most often, but the right next question is usually the one specific to your situation. Email randhir.lal@rklcma.com, message on WhatsApp at +91 95609 68938, or send a structured enquiry through the Confidential Enquiry form on the Contact page.