If you are a medium-large business, Federal or ACT government department in Canberra, chances are you’ve experienced the need for a financial audit.
Auditing is a highly specialised field, involving a deep and accurate examination and evaluation of your company’s financial records.
More than just a tool for reporting, a quality financial audit offers many benefits, such as:
- providing credibility with investors, suppliers, shareholders and the public;
- offering assurance to those who do not work in finance areas of the business;
- delivering valuable insights into how your business or organisation is tracking;
- informing future decision making.
Auditing doesn’t need to be invasive or time-consuming, and it can be a great way to uncover risk or regulation issues hidden within your company or organisation.
What happens during an audit?
At RSM, our Audit and Assurance team is headed up by Ged Stenhouse – a seasoned financial consultant with over 25 years’ experience in the industry.
Working alongside a team of highly experienced and accredited financial auditors, Ged’s process includes:
- Strategy: Understanding your strategy, processes, key business drivers and measures;
- Planning: Focussing on key operational areas and potentially high-risk areas;
- Fieldwork: Obtaining audit evidence, analysing trends and conducting an audit testing review;
- Reporting: Ongoing communication of issues and improvement opportunities;
- Feedback: Debriefing audit results and incorporating changes into future plans.
Of chief importance is continuous communication throughout the process, to ensure stakeholders are kept informed, potential problems are responded to quickly, and opportunities for improvement are capitalised on.
Characteristics of a quality financial auditor
If you’re searching for a financial auditor in Canberra, it pays to remember that not all auditors are created equally.
Ideally, you want someone who is highly specialised in the field and can prove their expertise by citing similar businesses they’ve worked with, and offering case studies and testimonials.
A quality auditor will:
- Be highly trained and qualified
- Be accredited
- Have high professional standards of excellence
- Keep lines of communication open throughout the auditing process
- Use quality systems to ensure consistency
- Be environmentally friendly (paperless).
At the heart of it, you want a financial auditor who can deliver technically excellent audits, while drawing on their in-depth knowledge of your business to make constructive contributions for improvement.
If your organisation is in need of a quality financial audit, please call the Assurance and Advisory team at RSM on 6217 0300 or visit rsm.com.au/canberra.
Loading ...
