Audit Readiness
Getting the ledger, the files and the accounting judgements into a state that survives an audit, before the auditor arrives rather than during fieldwork.
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Your partner for this service
Helomi Southwood
Partner, Technical Accounting & Reporting
CA · IFRS · Listed company reporting · 16+ years
Helomi leads our audit readiness work. She spent years on the other side of this, as Acting Chief Accountant and then Group Financial Manager of a listed group, preparing group and separate financial statements to statutory deadlines. She has also audited them. That combination is the whole point of the service: she knows which judgements an auditor will challenge, and she knows what it takes to get a finance team ready for that conversation while the month end still has to go out.
What audit readiness actually is
Most audit overruns are not caused by difficult accounting. They are caused by information that cannot be found, reconciliations that were prepared but never reviewed, and judgements that were made months ago by someone who did not write down why. By the time an auditor raises any of it, you are in fieldwork, the cost is already being incurred, and the options have narrowed.
Audit readiness moves that work forward. We go through the ledger, the supporting files and the accounting positions the way an auditor will, and we tell you what will not hold, while there is still time to fix it cheaply. The output is not advice in the abstract. It is a list of specific items, each with what is wrong, what evidence is missing, and who needs to do what by when.
It matters most in three situations. A first audit, where nobody in the business has been through one and the gap between management accounts and auditable records is usually wider than expected. A change of auditor, where a new firm re-examines positions the last one had grown comfortable with. And a change in circumstances: a new parent, a new framework, a funding round, a first consolidation, a lender who now wants audited figures.
This is deliberately not an audit. It carries no opinion and no conclusion, and it is not a regulated service. What it does is make the audit that follows shorter, cheaper and considerably less disruptive to the people who have a day job.
How a readiness engagement runs
- 01
Scoping call
What framework you report under, who the auditor is or will be, what the deadline is, and what has gone wrong before. We also ask what your team can realistically absorb, because a readiness list nobody has time to action is worthless.
- 02
Records and reconciliation review
We work through the trial balance and every balance sheet account to the supporting evidence, the way the audit file will be built. Where a reconciliation does not reconcile, or was never reviewed, we say so and quantify it.
- 03
Judgement and disclosure review
Revenue recognition, provisions, impairment, useful lives, leases, going concern, related parties, and anything non-standard that happened during the year. These are what the auditor will push on, so these are where position papers get written.
- 04
Findings report
One document: every item, its severity, the evidence needed to close it, an owner and a date. Written so it can go straight to your board or your audit committee without being rewritten.
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Close-out and handover
We work the list with your team until the open items are closed, then hand the auditor a complete PBC pack. Where you want it, we stay on through fieldwork to field the technical queries so your finance team is not the only line of defence.
What we deliver
First-time audit preparation
For businesses facing a statutory audit for the first time, whether triggered by growth, a lender, a new shareholder or a group that has crossed a threshold. We close the gap between records kept for management and records that stand up to audit evidence requirements.
Balance sheet clean-up
Every account reconciled to supporting evidence, reviewed by someone other than the preparer, with prior year audit adjustments actually posted. The single highest-value item on the list, and the one most often skipped.
Accounting position papers
Written technical memoranda on the judgements that will be challenged: revenue recognition on non-standard contracts, provisions, impairment, lease classification, capitalisation policy, going concern. Documented at the time the judgement is made rather than reconstructed under pressure.
Consolidation and framework readiness
Group consolidations, including those arising part way through a period, and reporting into a parent on a different framework. IFRS, UK GAAP and ASPE conversions, with the differences identified and quantified before the auditor finds them.
Financial statement drafting support
A complete draft, disclosures included, rather than primary statements with the notes to follow. A complete draft is worth far more to an auditor, and to you, than an early incomplete one.
PBC and data room preparation
The prepared-by-client list assembled properly: contracts in one place, minutes for the whole year including the recent ones, related party listing complete, going concern workings with the assumptions behind them. Equally useful when the audience is a buyer or a lender rather than an auditor.
The question is never whether the auditor will find it. It is whether you find it first, in October, or they find it in February with the deadline three weeks away.
Partner, Technical Accounting & Reporting What we check, in practice
The ledger
- A final trial balance, agreed to the general ledger and locked
- Every balance sheet account reconciled, with evidence of independent review
- Prior year audit adjustments posted, not sitting on a schedule
- A fixed asset register that reconciles, with additions supported and depreciation recalculated
- Stock or work in progress with a counted, priced and documented basis
- Revenue cut-off evidence for the days either side of the year end
The judgements
- Provisions and bad debt allowances, with the basis written down
- Impairment assessments and the assumptions behind them
- Useful lives and capitalisation policy, applied consistently
- Revenue recognition on anything non-standard
- Lease classification and the resulting numbers
- A going concern assessment with cash flow forecasts and covenant headroom
The file
- Contracts, leases, loan agreements and grant conditions in one place
- Board and committee minutes for the whole year, including the latest
- A complete related party listing, including close family and controlled entities
- Any letter of support you are relying on, obtained before the audit rather than during it
- A named contact who can find things, and a deputy who can too
- A complete PBC pack, handed over in one piece
Three ways to buy this
Readiness work scales to the size of the problem. Most engagements are the middle column. We will tell you which one you need on the scoping call, including when the answer is that you do not need us at all.
| Criterion | Readiness review | Full readiness programme | Retained technical support |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A findings report: every gap, its severity, the evidence needed, an owner and a date. | The findings report, plus we work the list with your team until the open items are closed and the PBC pack is handed over. | Ongoing access to a technical partner through the year, with positions documented as transactions happen rather than at year end. |
| Best when | You want to know where you stand, and you have the finance capacity to act on it yourselves. | A first audit, a change of auditor, or a year end where something significant changed and the team is already at capacity. | You report into a group, your transactions are genuinely complex, or the same judgements get re-litigated every year. |
| Typical timing | Three to six weeks, ideally four to six months before the year end. | From six months before the year end through to the auditor receiving the PBC pack. | Continuous, with the heavier work at quarter and year end. |
| Fee basis | Fixed fee. | Fixed fee, agreed once the review has scoped the work. | Monthly retainer. |
Where we do the readiness work, we are not your auditor. See the independence section below: this is a constraint we take seriously rather than a technicality to be drafted around.
A readiness timetable that works
Counted back from a 31 December year end. The dates shift, the sequence does not, and the single biggest determinant of how the audit goes is how much of this happened before December.
- Jun to Jul
Scope and review
Readiness review while the year is still open and errors can be corrected in the current period rather than disclosed as adjustments. Auditor appointed, or at least shortlisted, so their expectations feed into the plan.
- Aug to Oct
Fix the ledger
Reconciliations brought up to standard and put on a monthly cycle with independent review. Fixed asset register rebuilt if it needs it. Prior year adjustments posted. Contracts and minutes gathered into one place.
- Nov
Document the judgements
Position papers written on the significant judgements while the facts are fresh and the people involved are still available. Stock count instructions written and the count date given to the auditor.
- Dec
Year end
Cut-off controlled and evidenced. Count attended. Going concern forecast prepared with covenant headroom and any support letter obtained.
- Jan
Hand over
Complete PBC pack and a full draft of the financial statements, disclosures included, delivered in one piece rather than in instalments.
- Feb to Mar
Fieldwork
The audit the preparation was for. Queries answered in days rather than weeks, because the person who wrote the position paper is still the person answering the question.
Independence, and who we can do this for
Preparing a company for its audit and then auditing that company are not two services a firm can simply sell together. Doing both creates a self-review threat: we would be auditing our own work, forming an opinion on reconciliations we performed and judgements we documented. The professional standards we work under treat that as a real threat to independence, not a paperwork formality.
So we do one or the other. Where Black Maple is your auditor, your readiness work goes to another firm, and we will happily suggest where. Where we do the readiness work, your audit goes elsewhere, and we will brief your incoming auditor properly rather than leaving them to discover the file.
The practical upshot is that this service is most often bought by companies whose auditor is someone else, and who want a senior technical pair of eyes on the file before that auditor sees it. We find that conversation easier, not harder, than explaining afterwards why we signed off on work we had done ourselves.
If you are not sure which side of the line your situation falls on, ask on the first call. It is a five minute conversation and it is better had before an engagement letter exists.
Frequently asked questions
When should we start?
Four to six months before the year end is the window where readiness work is cheapest and most effective, because errors found while the year is still open can be corrected in the current period rather than carried into the audit as adjustments. Six weeks before fieldwork is still worth doing, but by then you are triaging rather than fixing, and some of the findings will be things you have to disclose rather than things you can put right.
Can you do our readiness work and also our audit?
No, and we would be wary of any firm that says otherwise. Preparing the records and judgements, then auditing them, means auditing our own work, which is a self-review threat the standards take seriously. We do one or the other, and we will tell you plainly which we are offering before any engagement letter is signed.
We have never been audited before. Is this the same as bookkeeping clean-up?
There is overlap, but the objective is different. Bookkeeping clean-up gets the ledger to a state where the numbers are right. Readiness gets it to a state where the numbers can be evidenced to a third party who is professionally obliged to doubt them. That means supporting documentation, independent review of reconciliations, and written reasoning behind every significant judgement, none of which a clean set of books necessarily has.
Our auditor already gives us a PBC list. Why would we pay for this?
A PBC list tells you what to send. It does not tell you that your fixed asset register will not reconcile, that your revenue cut-off cannot be evidenced, or that the provision nobody has looked at since 2023 will be challenged. The list is a request for documents. Readiness is an assessment of whether those documents will survive contact with an auditor.
How much does it cost, and does it actually save money?
Fixed fee, quoted after a scoping call, because the work depends entirely on the state of the records. On the saving: audit fees are mostly time, and the time is mostly spent looking for things and re-performing work that was done badly. We will not promise a number, but a readiness engagement that stops a two week overrun has usually paid for itself, and the larger benefit is normally the weeks your finance team gets back during fieldwork.
Who actually does the work?
Helomi Southwood leads the service line and is on every engagement. She is a chartered accountant with sixteen years across audit and in-house reporting, including as Group Financial Manager of a listed group, so the review is done by someone who has both prepared and audited the statements in question. Supporting work is done by qualified professionals, not trainees learning on your file.
Can you help if the audit has already started and it is going badly?
Yes, and it is a common call. The constraint is that options narrow once fieldwork is underway: some findings that could have been corrections become disclosures, and we have to work around the auditor rather than ahead of them. We will be straight with you about what can still be salvaged in the current year and what is now a next-year fix.
Our footprint
Available across our offices
Audit readiness is advisory work rather than a regulated service, so it is delivered from every Black Maple office, including those that do not provide audit. Where we carry out readiness work, we are not the auditor.
Further reading
Our thinking on this
-
Fractional CFO Closing the Month in Five Days Most finance teams close in three weeks because of how the work is sequenced, not how much there is. What to move, what to stop doing, and what to automate. -
Regulation & Reporting Deferred Tax: Where It Comes From and Why It Moves Deferred tax is the balance most finance teams inherit and nobody rebuilds. What it represents, what creates it, and why the asset is the hard part. -
Audit & Assurance What a Modified Audit Opinion Actually Means Qualified, adverse and disclaimer are three different outcomes with three different causes. And some of the scariest wording is not a modification at all.
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