For a successful operation, any enterprise needs to periodically conduct a professional assessment of its activities and reporting. Such services can be provided by qualified auditors who are part of the company's staff or who work on a contractual basis.
Audit purpose
As the main task audit it is possible to determine confirmation of the correctness of the reflection in the accounting of the company of its calculation with suppliers and companies, trust state funds, contractors, customers and the budget, as well as the timeliness of these financial transactions.
If you pay attention to the audit tasks, it can be noted that the specialist conducting the audit should establish the following information:
- compliance with legislation regarding settlements with accountable persons and the fidelity of their reflection in the records;
- legal basis for the appearance of accounts payable and receivable of the company;
- timely repayment of arrears;
- fidelity of reflection in accounting of the procedure for settlements with creditors and debtors;
- the relevance of the measures that were taken to eliminate the causes that provoked the occurrence of arrears;
- the compliance of the enterprise with the terms of the loan agreement and the fact of the targeted operation of the funds received;
- fidelity to display credit interest on the accounting account.
Independence and objectivity
Any auditor, while fulfilling his key tasks, should be guided by the general norms that are common in this field of activity. The audit principles in different companies do not actually differ, and above all, they come down to objectivity and independence during the audit.
First of all, this means that the auditor is not an employee of a state institution and is not subordinate to the control and audit bodies, that is, his activities are not adjusted by outside organizations. Also, the specialist performing the audit should not have personal, as well as property interests in the enterprise where the audit is conducted.
As for objectivity, it can be provided only with a high level of qualification of the auditor and his rich professional experience.
Confidentiality and Competency
Audit principles also include non-disclosure of information used and obtained during the audit. This requirement is one of the key. This principle means that the auditor does not have the right to provide any authority with any information about the economic activities of the enterprise. In the event that certain data will be disclosed, the specialist who performed the audit must be punished accordingly to the law, as well as answer according to the requirements of material and moral responsibility.
Competence is also one of the essential characteristics of the work of the auditor. This means that the inspector is obliged to undertake only those tasks that correspond to his professional level and precisely follow the requirements of regulatory documents.
Information Technology and Economic Analysis
The use of statistical methods and economic analysis are audit standards that are unchanged. It is these tools that make it possible to conduct a qualitative analysis of the state of the enterprise and to obtain the most objective and relevant information for the successful completion of the audit.
In turn, information technology is needed to quickly and accurately carry out verification, recovery and bookkeeping, as well as reporting analysis.
Professional skepticism
This is another quality of the specialist, which implies audit standards. When analyzing the activities of the enterprise, it is important to understand that there is always a risk of data distortion due to the influence of certain circumstances. And this fact must be taken into account.
Therefore, during the audit, the auditor is required to take a critical approach to assessing the weight of all data and evidence, paying attention to information that is not consistent with the statements of the enterprise management or the documentation provided. Professional skepticism is extremely important during the audit, as it helps not to lose sight of dubious circumstances, eliminates unjustified generalizations in the process of drawing conclusions. Also, this principle leads to the elimination of erroneous assumptions during the determination of the scope and time frame of audit procedures, their nature and evaluation of results.
In preparation for the audit, the specialist conducting the audit should initially take into account the possibility of some distortion of the data by the company's management, but not use this position to form any judgments without confirmed information.
Accounting Check
Initially, it is worth noting that the purpose of the audit is determined by the legislation of the Russian Federation, contractual obligations of the inspector and the client, as well as regulatory acts regulating audit activities.
As for the financial statements, when it is checked, relevant and fully sufficient audit evidence should be identified that will allow the auditing organization to confidently form conclusions regarding the following categories:
- compliance of the financial statements provided by the economic entity with the data available to the audit organization;
- the similarity of accounting of an economic entity to the requirements and documentation of regulatory acts that govern the procedure for preparing and maintaining accounting in the Russian Federation.
The conclusion of the representatives of the audit organization helps to increase the level of trust on the part of partners and customers in the enterprise that has passed the audit. It is worthwhile to understand the fact that the conclusions of the company that carried out the accounting audit are not a sufficient basis to guarantee the successful development of the enterprise in the future.
Why are financial statements checked?
It is important to understand that the audit can be focused on those tasks that are stipulated by the contract with the client. For example, determining the reserves for more efficient use of financial resources or analyzing the fidelity of calculating taxes. It is also possible to develop measures designed to improve the financial position of the company, as well as optimizing costs and revenues, the results of the enterprise and its costs.
In this case, the main audit tasks during the audit of the financial condition of the company are as follows:
- analysis of the completeness, accuracy and reliability of the reflection in the reporting and directly in the accounting of data on income, expenses and financial results of the company's activities within the audited period;
- confirmation of the reliability of reporting or stating their inconsistency with real data;
- determination of actual reserves, more productive use of own and fixed assets, as well as financial reserves together with borrowed funds;
- monitoring compliance with regulatory documents and legislation governing the rules of reporting and accounting;
- identification of the most effective methodology for assessing equity, assets and liabilities.
Thus, a financial audit can be not only an effective means of verifying the accuracy and fidelity of documentation, but also act as one of the tools for optimizing the work of an enterprise.
Features of the competence of the inspection organization
In order for the main objectives of the audit to be achieved and the conclusion could be considered complete and accurate, the auditor should form a qualified opinion on the following issues:
- General eligibility of reporting. Does the internal audit allow us to assert that the enterprise reporting fully complies with the requirements that were presented, and does it contain information of a contradictory nature?
- Separation. Do the operations conducted immediately before the balance sheet date and immediately after it correspond to the period in which they were actually carried out?
- Completeness. The reporting includes all the amounts that should be displayed in it (do all liabilities and assets of the company actually belong to it)?
- Classification. Were there really grounds for entering a specific amount into the account in which it was indicated?
- Accuracy. The audit principles also include checking the compliance of the amounts of individual transactions with the data recorded in journals and books of analytical accounting. As part of this stage, the specialist also receives answers to the following questions: were all the data correctly summed up and did the totals coincide with the information recorded in the General Ledger?
- Disclosure. Are all the articles included in the financial statements and how correctly are they described directly in the reports themselves, as well as in their annexes?
Auditing operations in a separate group
If you have to check, say, inventory, the structure of the intermediate tasks and conclusions, which can be described as positive, should look like this:
- Validity. At the time of compiling the balance sheet, all material and inventories of the company were recorded in the statements.
- General acceptability. The total amount of inventory can be determined as accurate and consistent with the real needs of the company.
- Completeness. All stocks of finance and goods that are available were calculated and entered on the balance sheet, and besides, are the property of the enterprise.
- Classification. The basic principles of audit in the case of the inventory base also include the division of the enterprise’s resources into groups such as work in progress, materials and finished products.
- Rating. The value used to estimate the resource reserves is correct, the quantity of inventory reserves coincides with the data displayed in the report, and the period during which prices were fixed turned out to be correct.
- Separation. The sum of the sale and purchase of resources between the two periods is divided correctly.
- Disclosure. An internal audit (or other audit) showed that key resource categories were evaluated correctly and correctly displayed in the report.
- Accuracy. The amounts recorded in the General Ledger and the documentation of analytical accounting are completely the same.
Additional services
Organizations that are professionally involved in verification are focused not only on key audit principles, but also on the provision of additional services:
- assistance in the process of organizing accounting;
- advising on various issues relating to law, finance, marketing, environmental and technological factors, as well as management;
- competent customer information service;
- development of documentation of constituent significance;
- assistance in the process of maintaining, preparing and restoring both financial and accounting statements;
- providing accurate data regarding potential and future partners.
- assistance in planning and calculating taxes;
- analysis of the results of economic activity, its expert assessment, etc.
Features of internal audit
The essence of this type of verification is reduced to independent activities within the organization, which is focused on evaluating the performance of the company and is carried out in the interests of management.
Internal audit has a clearly defined goal - it is a set of measures that helps employees of the enterprise to fulfill their responsibilities as efficiently as possible. Such an assessment of the company’s activities is carried out by specialists working directly on the leadership of this organization. Speaking of small enterprises, it can be noted that they rarely have full-time auditors. Therefore, to carry out verification on a contractual basis, they use the services of audit firms or audit commissions.
Initiative audit
In this case, we are talking about a voluntary audit, the reason for which is the decision of the founders or the management of the enterprise. The initiation of this type of audit may be the result of a direct instruction contained in federal law.
As a key task of the proactive audit, it is possible to determine the identification of deficiencies in the accounting process, in taxation and reporting. At the same time, an analysis is made of the financial condition of the business entity and qualified assistance is provided in organizing reporting and accounting.
Summary
If you consider an example of an audit of any kind, you can make an obvious conclusion: such checks are extremely important for the successful operation of the enterprise and accurate reporting. As a result, the management receives a clear and complete picture of the possible mistakes of the accounting department, as well as qualified advice on the efficient operation of the enterprise’s resources.
