audit Archives

Understanding the Purpose of a Pension Audit

by admin | Mar 20, 2025 | Latest News

A pension audit is a crucial process that ensures your retirement plan is compliant, transparent and financially sound. It safeguards the interests of beneficiaries while keeping your scheme aligned with legal and regulatory requirements. Understanding its purpose is the first step toward a smooth and successful audit:

Compliance: Confirms your pension scheme meets all relevant laws and regulations

Accuracy: Ensures financial statements provide a true and fair view of your scheme’s financial position

Risk Mitigation: Identifies and addresses potential risks that could impact the integrity of your pension scheme

How to prepare for a pension audit

Now that we’ve covered why a pension audit matters, let’s go through the key steps to help you prepare.

Keep Your financial records up to date

Accurate and complete financial records are the foundation of a smooth audit. Make sure your financial statements, balance sheets, income reports, and cash flow statements are current and well-documented. This will help present a clear financial picture to auditors.

Stay on top of timelines and deadlines

A well-planned audit is a stress-free audit. Familiarise yourself with key dates, including filing deadlines and scheduled auditor meetings. Staying ahead of these deadlines gives you time to resolve any issues and keeps the process running efficiently.

Communicate early with your auditor

Clear and proactive communication with your auditor can make a big difference. Reach out early to clarify expectations, timelines, and any specific audit requirements. A collaborative approach helps streamline the process and minimises last-minute surprises.

Review governance and administration

A well-structured pension scheme is easier to audit and gives stakeholders confidence. Take time to review:

The roles and responsibilities of trustees, administrators, and key stakeholders.

Any governance changes made during the audit period

The effectiveness of internal controls, particularly in financial management and decision-making

Reconcile investments and contributions

Regularly reconciling bank accounts and investment records is essential. Ensure that:

Bank statements align with internal accounting records

Investment values match detailed reports

Employee and employer contributions are accurately processed and allocated.

This helps prevent discrepancies and ensures financial integrity

Address potential issues in advance

If you spot compliance concerns or record-keeping inconsistencies, address them before the audit begins. Tackling these issues early helps avoid delays, prevents penalties, and protects the reputation of your pension scheme.

Setting yourself up for a successful audit

A pension audit doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By keeping records accurate, staying on top of deadlines, and maintaining open communication with your auditor, you can navigate the process with confidence.

At Fiander Tovell, we understand that pension audits can be complex. Our team is here to support you, ensuring your pension scheme remains compliant and transparent. Contact us today to prepare for a smooth, efficient audit.

How Audits Can Drive Successful Transactions

by admin | Nov 13, 2024 | Latest News

Preparing to sell a business, especially for smaller entities, involves multiple steps to ensure a smooth transaction. One strategic move that can benefit sellers immensely is conducting a voluntary statutory audit before the sale process begins.

At Fiander Tovell, our experienced team can guide you through the audit process, ensuring accurate and compliant financial statements. We specialise in helping businesses like yours optimise their financial reporting, enabling you to present a robust financial profile that instils confidence in stakeholders and supports your strategic objectives.

The Benefits of a Voluntary Audit Before Selling

An audit provides greater assurance that the figures you present to potential buyers are accurate. This added credibility can significantly reduce the likelihood of substantial adjustments to your earnings being uncovered during the sale process, especially in transactions based on multiples.

Secondly, the assurance from the audit can instil greater confidence in the potential buyer regarding the value of the business. This increased trust may lead them to limit the scope of their due diligence, reducing the time and resources spent by their advisors.

Additionally, preparing for an audit and providing the necessary documentation can facilitate the legal, financial and tax due diligence required during the transaction process. The audit will also highlight areas for improvement in your documentation and control environment, further streamlining the due diligence process.

Six Key Audit Preparations to Support a Successful Transaction

Ensuring accuracy in financial statements: Your auditor will ensure that your year-end and month-end processes produce an accurate trial balance, supported by source documents and reconciled with prior accounts. For due diligence, having a consistent history of management and statutory accounts with minimal adjustments is crucial and should be addressed before the sales process begins.
Ensuring availability of essential documentation: The audit process ensures you have all necessary source documentation on hand—such as bank statements, credit card statements and supplier invoices—which will also be required for the due diligence process.
Verifying completeness of personnel files: The auditor will review your personnel files to ensure all required data is present, such as signed contracts and letters regarding pay raises. Any identified gaps should be addressed and filled in before the due diligence process.
Gathering key contracts: The auditor will require copies of all leases, hire purchase agreements and other key contracts. This information will also be necessary for the due diligence process.
Ensuring compliance with Companies House: The auditor will ensure the trial balance aligns with Companies House records, such as share capital accuracy, and that board meeting minutes and dividend documentation are available—information that is also required for due diligence.
Preparing budgets and cash flow forecasts: The auditor will require supporting budgets and cash flow forecasts for assessing going concern. This data is also crucial for due diligence, as it helps buyers understand post-acquisition expectations. Many small entities may need to develop these forecasts before the sales process.

Even if you decide against an audit, reviewing these six areas—potentially with the assistance of your current advisors or new auditors experienced in due diligence—can help smooth the sales process.

How Fiander Tovell Can Help

At Fiander Tovell, we specialise in guiding businesses through the audit process, helping you ensure accurate and compliant financial statements. We can assist you in conducting a voluntary audit, providing the credibility needed to instil confidence in potential buyers and streamline due diligence.

For assistance or more information on how to achieve a successful transaction process, get in touch with us today.

How can you prepare for an audit?

by admin | Aug 19, 2024 | Latest News

An audit can be an additional burden for the finance team in any type of company. Whether it’s an internal audit, a regulatory compliance audit, or a financial audit conducted by an external firm, the process can be daunting.

Let our experienced audit team at Fiander Tovell handle your UK company’s audit with minimal disruption, fitting around your schedule. Within the statutory process, we can focus on the areas important to you, providing valuable feedback on internal controls and risks.

To ease your mind, this guide will help you prepare, ensuring your business is organised, compliant, and ready for a successful audit.

Preparing for an Audit

Planning

Planning is crucial. The first part of preparing for any task is to confirm the deliverables and the deadlines to enable a full plan to be developed. In the lead up to an audit, our team will be in contact with you to ensure that we build a clear timeline and communicate what we will need from you

Throughout the financial year, keeping records up to date can reduce pressure as the audit approaches. Ensuring that reconciliations of key balances are completed regularly and that all the supporting source records are readily available will make the process smoother and more efficient.

Accounting Standards

Accounting standards and legal requirements change frequently. It’s essential to keep your finance team informed about new developments from regulatory bodies. Staying current with these updates reduces the time needed to track data and implement necessary changes to comply with regulations.

Our team can help ensure your finance team is always up-to-date, streamlining compliance and making the audit process more efficient.

If you’ve been audited before

If your company has been audited before, it’s important to consider any changes in its financial situation since the last audit. Significant changes, such as new transaction types or material balances, can impact the auditing process. Non-financial changes should also be considered, such as internal control system updates or changes in key personnel. Our team can help you identify and address these changes to ensure a smooth and accurate audit.

Prepare your data

Make sure you have all the items on our preparation checklist ready before the start date. This type of information requested will depend on your organisation but is likely to include:

Access to the accounting system or specific reports from the system
Supporting reconciliations for all key balance sheet items
Copy bank statements
Going concern assessment including supporting budgets and cash flow forecasts
Other source documents such as invoices for sample testing

They may also request minutes from relevant meetings with directors and other organisational documents. It’s important to verify what is needed, even if you have successfully completed an audit before.

Next Steps

If your business needs an audit, please consider us to handle the process with minimal disruption to your team and in line with your timescales. Our specialist team of experienced auditors will plan and organise the audit with a focus on efficient delivery whilst providing valuable insights and feedback on internal controls and inherent risks. Trust us to deliver a smooth and efficient audit experience that adds real value to your business.

For more information or to make an enquiry, please contact our Head of Corporate, Adam Buse, at adambuse@fiandertovell.co.uk to get the ball rolling today!

Did you know we Audit Grants?

by admin | Jul 25, 2024 | Latest News

Receiving a grant can be fantastic for businesses and not for profit entities. In order to comply with the requirements of these funding agreements, your spending may be subject to being audited. These audits ensure that every penny is properly managed and utilised.

At Fiander Tovell, we specialise in auditing grants, helping you meet the requirements often stipulated in your grant agreement or contract. With our expertise, you can rest assured that your requirements for funding have been effectively managed, paving the way for your business to succeed. So, let us help you navigate the complexities of grant audits, so you can focus on what you do best.

What is a grant audit?

Audits are typically done on grants during or at the grant period’s end. They are used to ensure compliance, transparency, and the proper use of resources.

It involves an auditor reviewing records to verify:

Allowable costs and the legitimacy of expenses purchased with grant money
Programme income generated by the grant and programme performance

It’s important to note that grant audits are not always needed and will only be required if the benefactor requests it. Usually, government bodies tend to request audits along with their funding programmes.

The procedures of the grant audit can vary based on the funding provided and the requirements inherent in the grant agreement.

Appointing an Auditor

If you’re required to complete a grant audit to secure your external funding, one of the most important steps is to appoint an auditor at the acceptance stage of the grant. By appointing us early, we can gain a comprehensive understanding of your project, allowing us to conduct a more cost-efficient and time-efficient grant audit.

You’ll need to organise the audit and cover any associated fees. However, you may be able to apply to the grant-awarding body to retrospectively cover the cost of the audit, or it might be included within the funding award, so the expense may not be a concern.

Get in touch

If your grant requires an audit, we are happy to assist your business or not for profit entity throughout, to ensure a smooth process. We want to make sure you reap all the possible benefits from the grant.

If you would like to enquire about our services or discuss the process with a member of our audit team, please contact our Client Director, Mark Gregory at markgregory@fiandertovell.co.uk.

An Audit Career with a Difference

by admin | Apr 4, 2024 | Latest News

At Team FT, we work with five core values at the forefront of all that we do. This translates to our constantly evolving Corporate Team, where opportunity, fairness, transparency, personal responsibility, and teamwork are at the heartbeat of our success.

From the rewarding feeling of completing an audit, to establishing mutually beneficial working relationships and discovering a healthy work-life balance – join us as we cast a new light on the industry, revealing what it means to truly excel in the world of audit and redefining standards with every step.

Finding a rewarding career

When you’re working in a field that you’re passionate about, such as with audit, we understand the joy of seeing a project from start to finish. Project-to-project, each member of the team is an active part of the process, from planning to fieldwork and then final sign-off. Where some firms may leave client-facing tasks solely to senior members of staff, we encourage the development of well-rounded auditors who are equipped to deal with queries and client interactions.

We carry out audits of a wide range of companies, including charities, large group companies, partnerships and solicitors’ audits – being able to understand the intricacies of our client-base empowers our team to navigate each project with confidence!

Take Sian, for example, who joined our Training Programme back in 2018. Now one of our Audit Supervisors, she enjoys the varied nature of life on our audit team:

‘My role has progressed to being extremely varied and allows me to see all aspects of an audit from the preparation before the year end and communication with the client for planning, to the tying up of final queries and finalising the adjustments and disclosures in the accounts so they’re ready for signing. I spend time onsite during the fieldwork to assist the team with queries as they crop up as well as review work completed to date and discuss feedback in person as needed.’

Promoting mutually beneficial relationships

As our team members develop their expertise, we hope that they not only put it into practice through their own work, but spur on our younger team members to find their feet within auditing. With a team ranging from school-leavers to auditors with 20 years’ experience, a culture of learning and development is at the forefront of our work.

We constantly have several projects on the go at once, splitting our auditors into several smaller teams. On each individual project, the team is structured to include individuals with differing levels of experience, ensuring that every member of the team feels adequately supported throughout. This inspires our culture of continuous learning and professional development; our trainees are able to learn from qualified auditors, whilst our senior team members receive enough support on the project at hand.

‘There are various levels [of people] in the team who each have different roles and responsibilities. We work together on audit jobs and provide the support we need to each other.’ – Ciaran, Accounts & Audit Senior

Discovering healthy work-life balance…

Many members of our team found their role at Fiander Tovell in search of a firm with a more sustainable work-life balance, allowing them to discover their passion for audit, whilst avoiding burnout. We prioritise the cultivation of an environment that allows our people to thrive and feel at home even when they’re at work. Our down-to-earth, friendly office culture is what we feel makes us different to the rest. It enables our team to work to a standard that they can truly be proud of, whilst avoiding the burnout typically associated with audit.

…Whether you’re at the beginning of your career…

‘I first learned about Fiander Tovell at a college careers fair, the two colleagues at the stand were far more approachable than other firms and were happy to answer any questions I had. As soon as I began on my first day, I was made to feel welcome and was provided great support in my learning.’ – Kaitlyn, Audit Supervisor

… Or looking for a new role to shake up your audit journey!

‘I was looking for a better work life balance and the right firm to support me in my growth and journey. I felt FT had better support and the directors were being honest in the interview not just telling me what I wanted to hear. The firm also offered far more flexibility in working compared to some of the other places I interviewed.’ – Mike, Audit Manager

If you’re looking to (re)ignite your passion for audit, then a role on our 24-strong audit team could be what you’re looking for. Our growing Corporate Department is always looking for talented and ambitious professionals to join their renowned audit team.

Does Fiander Tovell sound like an environment where you’ll thrive? Check out our rolling vacancies here!