Whether an audit is needed at all
The requirement and the reporting framework follow from the company's own circumstances. It is worth establishing which apply before a year end rather than after it.
Systems & Assurance
Statutory Audit
Audit of financial statements, where a company requires one. Whether an audit is required, and under which reporting framework, follows from the company's own circumstances — and that is the first thing to establish.
- Private limited companies
- Group subsidiaries
- Companies with lenders or outside investors
- Businesses preparing for a transaction
What we are usually called about
The questions this work arrives with
None of these is unusual and none of them is a failing. They are what happens when a business grows faster than the records, the systems and the filings that describe it.
Records that are not ready
An audit of a ledger that has not been closed turns into a bookkeeping exercise with an audit fee attached. Most delays start here.
A first audit, or a change of auditor
Opening balances, prior-period information and the handover between firms are the parts that take longest and are usually planned last.
Group and related-party balances
Amounts between connected companies that agree in one set of books and not in the other, found late because nobody reconciles them in between.
Independence, resolved first
Whoever prepares a company's accounting records cannot also audit them. Where the practice already does other work for a company, that is settled before an audit is accepted rather than during it.
How the work runs
What an engagement looks like
Scope and fees are agreed in advance and in writing, before any of this starts. Where a step turns out not to be needed, it is dropped rather than billed.
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01
Acceptance
Establishing which framework applies, what other work the practice does for the entity, and whether the engagement can be accepted at all.
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02
Planning
Understanding the business and the systems it runs on, assessing risk, and agreeing timing and the information required.
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03
Fieldwork
Testing balances and transactions, attending stock counts where relevant, and obtaining confirmations from third parties.
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04
Completion
Clearing findings with management, reviewing the financial statements, and obtaining written representations.
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05
Reporting
Issuing the report, together with a management letter on the control matters observed while the work was done.
Scope
What an engagement can cover
A list of what the work can include, not a package. What is actually needed is settled after the first conversation and written into the engagement letter.
- Audit of financial statements
- Planning and risk assessment tied to the systems the entity runs on
- Stock attendance and third-party confirmations where relevant
- Management letter on the control weaknesses observed
- Coordination on opening balances for a first audit or a change of auditor
Bookkeeping and audit stay separate
Where the practice maintains a company's accounting records, it does not also audit that company's financial statements — reviewing our own work is not a review. Which of the two is wanted is settled at the start of the relationship rather than at a year end.
Who this is for
Where this work usually comes from
Retail
Chains running an ERP and a point of sale, where stock, margin and every invoice are now reported in real time.
Pharmaceutical
Manufacture and distribution sold through a trade that settles half its margin outside the invoice — in bonus stock, credit terms, discounts and credit notes.
Alongside this
What this work usually sits next to
One practice handles all of it, so nobody is coordinating between a systems consultant, a tax adviser and a bookkeeper.
Systems & Assurance
Internal Audit
Risk-based programmes and board-level reporting
Compliance & Outsourcing
Corporate Compliance
Company formation and SECP filings
Compliance & Outsourcing
Business Process Outsourcing
Bookkeeping, payroll, returns and month-end close