The trend towards leaner finance teams, with a focus on automation and internal or strategic reporting, can leave little bandwidth for the audit cycle. In addition, FCA scrutiny on audit firms to improve quality has added to the work load and documentation that companies must prepare. All of which creates stress for the finance team.
Furthermore, a lack of audit readiness can result in poor preparation of required documents, an increase in year-end adjustments, and many discussions with auditors around the quality of documents and deliverables. Delays risk not getting the information to your stakeholders on time, which can result in unwanted consequences and extra costs. And spending time meeting auditors’ requests takes finance teams and operational departments away from developing and increasing the operations of the company.
Follow our checklist for what you need to do to get through an audit, followed by three key areas where you can get some additional audit support for your team.
The following checklist, collated by our Financial Accounting Advisory Services (FAAS) team, is designed to help you through the process of completing your statutory audit on time:
Whatever your scale, complexity and preparedness, our FAAS team can take the difficulty out of the audit process and manage complex or technical challenges, allowing you to focus on your day-to-day responsibilities and key reporting deadlines. We provide support with finance placement, financial reporting advice, and environmental social and governance (ESG) assurance.
We offer a placement service where our professionals embed themselves in your business, become trusted team members, and provide you with additional skills and expertise. We work together with your finance team to understand your challenges, go through the audit deliverables, and help you deliver the audit in a timely and efficient manner.
Placement examples:
We have a broad understanding of both best practice and how financial reporting can go wrong. Together with our technical knowledge of IFRS, UK GAAP and US GAAP, and capital markets insight, this means we can provide you with access to experts to help you balance demands and challenges within your team. With our global network of firms, we can support you across the globe across whichever GAAP you report under.
Examples of financial reporting areas that may require support:
The landscape of sustainability reporting is developing rapidly. We work closely with you to gather the right information, build the right controls around data and help you build the right report. It's also important to align your practices with the relevant sustainability standards to ensure the information you present in your sustainability report, including ESG, follows best practice, and is clear and concise.
Key support areas:
By improving the quality of documentation and the bandwidth within your finance team, you have the opportunity to reduce delays as well as reduce the potential for over-runs being charged by your auditors. Taking pro-active and practical steps now will help make the audit process easier and less painful.
For more insight and guidance, get in touch with Rosamond Murphy.
