The auditor will provide a prepared by client list. This list should encompass about 85% of what will be needed during the audit (questions and further requests are always inevitable). This list will typically include a trial balance (finalized year end numbers including all accruals if doing GAAP basis financial statements), reconciliations of major accounts tied to the general ledger, important business documents such as lease and debt agreements, and processes documentation of major transaction cycles. It is very helpful to do your own variance analysis on your financial statements on either the prior year or budget and provide to the auditor before beginning audit fieldwork. There will also be confirmation work that will need to be done on bank accounts, receivables and notes payable which will need to be done a month or two before beginning fieldwork in order for the auditor to receive responses back.

An audit is not required to find and point out all areas of improvement however we are supposed to assess internal control and if we see any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses, we will formally issue a letter regarding those. Also, typical practice is to either have discussions or issue a management comment letter of any other areas we see could use improvement and to help be a solution in solving the problems.

We are required to look at your financial statements and assess risk. We will tailor our procedures around what we perceive to be the assessed risk of each financial statement area. If we believe there to be a high level of risk, we will recommend how to improve.

GAAP stands for generally accepted accounting principles. GAAP accounting means you include all necessary accruals in your financial statements or match your revenues and expenses to the period they are associated with. Accruals are items such as receivables or payables that have not been received or paid by year end. Some common items that are missed are prepaid expenses (i.e. insurance paid in full for a year), payroll earned but not paid, or vacation earned but not used.