External Audit Liaison & Audit Readiness

Most audits run long for the same reason: the auditor arrives and the file is not ready. Balances have not been reconciled, supporting schedules do not agree to the ledger, intercompany accounts do not net off, and the answers to routine questions live in the heads of people who are busy doing something else. The audit then becomes a months-long exchange of requests, and the cost rises with it — auditors price the disruption as much as the work.

Readiness is the fix, and it is done before fieldwork rather than during it. That means reconciled control accounts, a lead schedule for every material balance tied back to the trial balance, fixed asset and inventory records that agree to what is physically there, revenue cut-off tested at the period end, and provisions and accruals with a documented basis rather than a round number carried forward. Where estimates and judgements are involved, the reasoning is written down while it is still fresh.

The liaison role is the other half, and it is where the time is actually saved. One point of contact holds the auditor's request list, routes each item to whoever can answer it, chases what is outstanding, and reviews responses before they go back. Questions get answered once, in a form the auditor can use, instead of three times in three different formats. Your finance team keeps running the business rather than fielding the audit.

Controls get attention too, because they are what the auditor tests before deciding how much substantive work to do. A company with a clear separation between who approves, who pays and who records — and evidence that the separation held all year — gives the auditor a basis to rely on its systems. One without that invites a wider sample and a longer engagement.

Audit findings are worth more than the sign-off, and they are routinely wasted. A management letter identifying weaknesses is a free diagnostic on the finance function, and the same points reappear year after year in companies that file it and move on. We work through the findings after the audit closes and fix the causes before the next cycle, so the second audit is materially easier than the first.

Where an audit is a condition of something else — a regime that requires audited financial statements, a bank facility, an investor, a licence renewal — the timetable matters as much as the outcome. Working back from that date is what determines when the books must close and when readiness work has to start.

We prepare the file and the schedules, review the controls, manage the auditor relationship end to end, and deal with the findings afterwards. The audit opinion itself is signed by your appointed auditor. Where you do not have one, we can help you appoint one — we do not take that role ourselves.