Audit Readiness

Companies rarely get to choose when they become auditable. Growth crosses the statutory thresholds, an investor term sheet demands audited accounts, a group acquires you, or a lender tightens covenants — and suddenly a finance function built for management reporting has to withstand independent scrutiny of every balance. The first audit of an unprepared company is slow, expensive and bruising for everyone involved.

Audit readiness is the fix applied in advance: we review your balance sheet the way an auditor will, substantiate or clean up what is there, build the schedules and evidence the audit will request, and leave your team knowing what is coming. The audit that follows is shorter, cheaper and calmer — whoever performs it.

Who Needs Audit Readiness

Three groups, mainly: companies approaching the statutory audit thresholds or newly caught by them; companies facing a first audit because of investment, acquisition or lender requirements; and companies already audited whose audits run late, over budget and through endless question rounds every year — which is usually a readiness problem wearing an audit-fee disguise. In each case the economics are the same: preparation is cheaper than discovery.

Balance Sheet Substantiation

The heart of readiness is proving the balance sheet: every material balance reconciled to evidence an auditor will accept — bank reconciliations that actually reconcile, debtor and creditor ledgers tied to the nominal, fixed asset registers that match what exists, stock records supported by counts, and the accruals, prepayments and provisions rebuilt from support rather than rolled forward on faith. Suspense accounts and long-uninvestigated differences get resolved now, quietly, instead of during fieldwork.

Accounting Policies and First-Time Issues

First audits surface policy questions management has never had to answer: revenue recognition under FRS 102, capitalisation and depreciation choices, lease treatment, deferred tax, share-based payments from that option scheme nobody documented. We identify the judgements your auditor will challenge, document the positions with reasoning, and flag the ones that need correcting before they become audit adjustments — or qualified opinions.

The PBC Pack and Your Team

Audits drag when the prepared-by-client list arrives as a surprise. We build the PBC pack in advance — the schedules, reconciliations and documents any audit will request — and walk your finance team through what fieldwork actually looks like: who will be asked what, how to answer, and when pushing back is legitimate. A team that knows the process runs it instead of being run by it.

Readiness and Independence

A company's auditor cannot prepare the numbers it then audits — independence rules draw that line, and they are right to. Readiness work is therefore cleanest as a separate engagement: we prepare companies for audits performed by other firms, and where Acumon is to be the auditor, readiness support is limited to what independence permits — or delivered before appointment. We will map the boundary for your situation plainly before any engagement starts.

What You Get With Acumon

• Balance sheet review and substantiation to audit-evidence standard
• Suspense accounts, unreconciled differences and legacy balances resolved in advance
• Accounting policy positions identified, documented and corrected where needed
• Complete prepared-by-client (PBC) pack built before fieldwork
• Finance team briefed on what an audit asks and how to respond
• Process fixes that make next year's audit cheaper, not just this year's
• Support for auditor selection and scoping for first-time audits
• Transaction-driven readiness for investment, sale and lender deadlines

Why Acumon for Audit Readiness?

• Run by an ICAEW-registered, FRC-authorised audit practice — preparation built on knowing exactly what audits test
• Team of 70 audit professionals, more than half from top-4 and top-5 firms
• Experience from first-time owner-managed audits to listed-company standards
• Full-service firm: accounting, tax and VAT specialists resolve what readiness uncovers

Get a Fixed-Fee Quote

Tell us what you need and we'll come back within one business day with a clear scope and a fixed price — no hourly-rate surprises. Call 020 8567 3451 or use the form and we'll be in touch.