Some of the members of our Audit & Assurance team took the reigns for this newest installment of our blog series, “Real Tips from Real Accountants.” They weighed in on the following prompt:

“What are your three top tips to share with someone who is preparing for an audit”

Review their responses here and reach out to us with any questions you may have about preparing for an audit:

These are my top tips for preparing for an audit:

1. Keeping good, organized files/records really helps all parties involved. Being able to find and provide support needed for the audit quickly can accelerate the process and make it easier.
2. Communication between everyone helps move things along smoothly. If everyone is on the same page it can make the process easier.
3. Proper planning of the audit can also be beneficial for all parties. Dividing up areas of work early lets people focus on those areas and plan for what they will need.

       – Natan Duffy

My top three tips to share include:

1. Do your best to get all your adjusting entries in your general ledger before audit team comes out.
2. Have all year end reconciling accounts completed.
3. Have the Suralink request list completed and done before audit starts.

      – Mark Welp

My top three tips to share with someone who is preparing for an audit are as follows:

1. Do not wait until year end to complete all reconciliations.  Complete monthly or quarterly reconciliations so that you can clear up any questions while the information is still fresh in your mind.  This will make the year end reconciliations much easier.
2. Once all reconciliations are prepared and the trial balance is complete do one last review to make sure that the reconciliations still agree to the trial balance.  If all reconciliations agree to the trial balance this will make the audit go much smoother.
3. If a Provided by Client (PBC) list is provided by the auditor number the documentation pulled for the auditors to match the number in the PBC list.  This is will allow the auditors to find the information more quickly and prevent some questions from the auditors.

      – Shannon Robinson

There are a few things that an organization can do to prepare themselves, and their team, for a smoother audit process.

1. The first thing would be to make sure that the organization has implemented effective processes and procedures for organizing and filing all documentation. This will save their team time when the auditors start to request individual invoices, payment details, etc. throughout the testing process.
2. The next tip would be, if possible, to carefully review all audit requests ahead of the scheduled fieldwork and ask any relevant questions as close to the beginning of the audit as possible. This will help to prevent delays in the auditor obtaining the documentation that he/she needs and likely prevent excess work on the client’s side, as well.
3. The third tip would be to try to make sure that key personnel will be available during the scheduled fieldwork period. This will also play a large role in the avoidance of delays in the audit timeline.

          – Jennie Schott