Without proper preparation, a financial audit can be time consuming, distracting and potentially more expensive than necessary.

CA ANZ's Charity and Not-for-Profit (NFP) Advisory Committee have published a new guide, NFP Insights: Preparing for a successful audit, designed to help members who run NFPs successfully prepare for an audit. 

This guide outlines seven top tips to getting audit ready, with some of the key takeaways being knowing your reporting requirements and gathering evidence early. 

Talking to your auditors early on is important to set out clear expectations of what the process will be like.

“Best practice is to prepare and review the shell financial statements internally before passing them to your auditor for review and feedback before year-end.”

A key point is to have an accurate understanding of the type of entity your NFP is, and what kind of financial reporting and audit requirements apply to it. 

Once you know this, it will be easier to prepare and review your draft financial information beforehand to speed up the process. 

Outlining the best practices to follow, this guide takes you through the questions you need to ask yourself as you document decisions and prepare shell financial statements.