Audit, Compliance and Assurance services

An audit is the external examination of an organisation's financial statements by someone independent, normally a Chartered or Certified Accountant and Registered Auditor.

By law, a company requires an audit when it has two of the following:

• Turnover in excess of £10.2m

• Gross assets in excess of £5.1m

• More than 50 employees.

There may be other scenarios when a company requires an audit and transitional years are treated slightly differently.

Many organisations will opt for an audit even if they do not require one by law as a statutory audit provides a much higher level of scrutiny. If you would like to discuss your needs and our approach to audits please get in touch.

Our corporate services department can help in many areas of compliance, including but not limited to: preparation of financial statements (for audited and non-audited entities) to fulfil statutory requirements including filing at Companies House, providing advice in relation to the accounting treatment of transactions, providing Registered Office and Company Secretarial services such as Confirmation Statement filings, Director appointments/resignations, share transfers etc., making recommendations on a company’s procedures and processes as part of our audit findings.

An accountant in our corporate services department can assist with: statutory accounts audits, preparation of statutory accounts, corporation tax compliance and other matters such as assisting with filings at Companies House, advice on accounting or tax treatment.

There are many benefits to an audit of statutory accounts – compliance being key where an audit is required for one of the reasons listed above. Other benefits include: an objective insight on the company or group’s finance function, processes and controls, identifying weaknesses in these areas or susceptibility to fraud, promoting best practices within your organisation, adding credibility to your financial statements which may assist with obtaining finance from lenders or grants, peace of mind provided for shareholders outside of day to day management.

In order to ensure an efficient audit process, we will have a planning meeting with you to discuss the key aspects of the audit, agree a timetable and provide a deliverables list via a secure online document exchange portal, so that your team and ours are well prepared in advance. The audit team will test a sample of transactions and ask for various back-up documents for transactions and balances within the financial statements as well reviewing your systems and internal control processes. This will require time and engagement from management, however our experienced team will work with you to minimise disruption and will use various audit tools at their disposal to improve the efficiency of the process. We can also provide some flexibility around a combination of on-site presence as well as remote working to facilitate what works most efficiently.