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Helpful Hints In Preparing For Your Audit
– November 19, 2009
In the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season and the upcoming New Year, the last thing on anyone's mind is the excitement of an audit experience. I know what everyone is thinking. Audit experiences rank pretty close to opening presents on Christmas morning, right?
HMV decided that with all that excitement, we would give everyone a few helpful hints in preparing for the audit. The listing below contains six key items that will hopefully help you during preparation:
- Be sure to get the trial balance to the auditors prior to fieldwork. This will allow for your auditors to prepare preliminary analytical reviews for analysis and help to ensure that fieldwork will be efficiently preformed.
- Provide everything requested on the PBC list and label items to corresponding item #. This is the most important step to ensuring a pleasant and quick experience. The faster we have the information, the faster we are done and out of your hair. The numbering also helps us know what is missing.
- Provide access to detail general ledger. Though not always requested, access to the detail of each account will allow us to answer some of our own questions without having to interrupt your busy day.
- Make sure reconciliations for bank statements and key balance sheet accounts actually tie out to the general ledger. Also provide supporting documentation for any reconciling items. Again, this is not difficult, but helpful. Sometimes, we rush, rush, rush and fail to double check to make sure we have completed the reconciliations properly.
- Give auditors as many items electronically as possible. This suggestion makes auditors happy. Anything we can receive as an Excel file or PDF brings joyful tears to our eyes.
- Make a list and don't get overwhelmed. A good practice to get in the habit of is making a list. It gives you a sense of accomplishment to cross something out. When we make additional requests for information, simply write it down and don't get panicked. Take a deep breath and forget about us for a minute, it might help.
Hopefully these tips are useful for you when you begin preparing for your upcoming audit. Some of them may sound extremely simple, but they truly do make difference in the effectiveness and efficiency of time spent doing fieldwork. And remember if all else fails, just laugh, it is bound to make you feel better.
Taylor Robertson, CPA
318.429.2123
trobertson@hmvcpa.com
Taylor joined Heard, McElroy & Vestal in 2009 and is a member of the firm's audit department. She is a graduate of Centenary College pf Louisiana where she received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting/Economics.