At Dunkley’s, we’ve been auditing companies for many years now but we’ve had to adapt our processes over the last year due to COVID-19.
With lockdown and regional restrictions in place from 23 March 2020, it became impossible for us to visit clients’ premises to conduct an on-site audit.
Fortunately, we were in a good position to move these processes online after implementing cloud technology within our business.
It’s this flexible approach, not just to our audit service but throughout our services, that enables us to roll with the punches at times like these.
As the NHS continues to do an amazing job in inoculating the UK’s population against COVID-19, life is slowly getting back to normal.
But while we still offer an old-skool audit of your company, remote audits are definitely here to stay as far as we’re concerned.
What are remote audits?
Remote audits involve us using electronic methods to gather the evidence we need to audit your company. We currently do this by sharing files over cloud-secured email and video-conferencing platforms like Zoom.
This technology lets us receive and review any documents or records, tour your premises (even if it’s not been used much over the last year), or interview any of your employees. We use the same technology to present our findings back to you after we’ve finished auditing your company.
Exactly like an on-site audit, we have the same observation, inspection, inquiry, and analytical procedures to follow. They don’t require us to be on-site, but we do need to agree on which technology to use before we start.
We then examine your records and present our objective findings, including the methods and technology used during the remote audit of your company.
Who needs an audit?
By law, most medium and large-sized companies in the UK need to have their annual accounts for the financial year independently audited by an impartial third party like Dunkley’s.
Small companies with annual turnover of less than £10.2 million, gross assets of less than £5.1m and fewer than 50 employees are not legally obliged to get an annual audit. However, if 10% or more of your small company’s shareholders vote in favour of an audit, you must request one.
And lots of businesses not legally obliged to be audited choose to have one anyway just because it can act as a helpful health-check.
Why get a remote audit?
Most companies require an annual audit, but it makes even more sense to go down the remote route given that the UK is not yet out of the woods as far as COVID-19 is concerned.
Remote audits cost far less than normal audits when you factor in savings on travel and accommodation, while you don’t need to worry about buying us lunch either.
We generally find that remote audits are more time-efficient, too, in the sense that we have more time to review your company’s financial records and processes as we don’t have to waste time travelling to and from your premises.
Get in touch
If you’re a director of a medium or large-sized limited company and want to find out more about our audit services, email advice@dunkleys.accountants or call us on 01454 619900.