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For some businesses an audit is a statutory requirement but for many it’s an independent perspective which provides valuable feedback on how the business is being managed and how to improve. You may also consider having an audit if you are planning to sell your business, to help achieve the maximum sale price.
Most limited companies are required to conduct an external audit if they meet two of the criteria below:
- Turnover is more than £10.2 million
- Assets total in excess of £5.1 million
- Employ more than 50 people
An audit is a valuable exercise and will provide:
- An independent perspective of your business
- Identifying weaknesses in internal controls
- Identifying where profitable changes can be made
- Confirms that you have performed your statutory duties correctly
- Gives feedback on the way you’ve approached the running of your business
- Comments on the effectiveness of internal controls and provide recommendations for improvement
- Increases stakeholder confidence.
- May also help in deterring fraud and providing comfort to external stakeholders such as customers and suppliers, and for charitable entities; the trust and confidence of the public
An audit is a sample test of the amounts and the disclosures in the financial statements prepared for a company. The main role of the statutory audit is to provide satisfaction to the stakeholders of a company that the directors of a company are acting in the best interest of the shareholders and are managing the company in a way that will achieve the best return for the shareholders.
As auditors it is our responsibility to:
- Form a true and fair independent opinion on your accounts;
- Confirm that your accounts have been properly checked.
An essential element of an audit is to feel you are receiving useful information that will benefit your business; it should not simply be a tick box exercise to conform to regulations.
As registered auditors Stafford & Co carry out this work for both our own clients and for clients of other accountancy firms who are not registered.
Auditing enables our teams to fully understand a business and how it operates, enabling us to help business owners to improve not only their accounting processes, but other business processes and measurements that can also improve business performance.