Free consult & free copy of book

E-Myth – “Why most small businesses don’t work & what to do about it”

Contact Us

Stars

Most 5 star CPA Google reviews in Canada

Read Reviews

Chartered Professional Accountants E Myth

1 Fixed Monthly Fee - Planning | Accounting | Taxes | Consulting

Helping Canadian businesses beat the odds!

Business Bootcamp | Audits Are Unsurprisingly Very Important

Business bootcamp thanks Warren Buffett for the quote “accounting is the language of business.”

Business owners will often come in to see us thinking they need an audit or review. However, often times what happens is they have no idea why in fact they need the auditor review. Bear in mind to that a lot of business owners are in fact available on the weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, so there more receptive to meeting times. They don’t often bring in the mindset of the rat race of the week days as well if you meet with them on the weekends.

A small business, or any business for that matter, says business bootcamp, can be either a direct or indirect result of running out of money of course there are other aspects as well in terms of the failure of the business, however losing a cash flow is in fact one of the top reasons why a business fails. The numbers that we are speaking of is in the form of financial statement.

Business owners come into their charter professional accountant and they think that they need our review, as mentioned. The reason why they think they need to review quite frankly is most the time they are not making money, and the business isn’t progressing, or going.

There are three types of financial statements which small business owners should at least be marginally aware of. Your charter professional accountant however will have far more specific details and will be able to handle the financial statements for specific locations.

The first financial statement is called a notice to reader financial statement. This in fact is the lowest level of assurance. It also comments on the fact that wondering if this statement is arithmetically correct. Also it does comment on the fact of plausibility of the numbers.

Business bootcamp educates that the second financial statement is called a reviewed financial statement. This financial statement is in fact testing the reason abilities of the numbers. Oftentimes what is being tested are the analysis in determining if the statements are actually reasonable. And of course nobody will note that the reasonable until they are tested by your charter professional accountant.

The final financial statement is called an audited financial statement. The audited financial statement usually involves confirmations of balances. Have we confirmed the balances with the bank? Have the owner, along with a charter professional accountant confirmed the receivables with the people that actually old that money? Has the testing been down that money has come in subsequent to the year end?

Make sure that you at least have a marginal idea of what each financial statement means and what it can do for you. However, let your charter professional accountant do the heavy lifting in terms of exactly what you are needed in terms of which financial statement would be best to serve you. Make sure that as a business owner you at least know what you’re getting into however partner with a charter professional accountant so that you don’t have to necessarily worry about specifics.

As soon as you decide that you want to start a small business, business bootcamp suggests that you hire an educated, and experienced charter professional accountant.

There are many reasons for this. One of which is that, oftentimes the Jews and it audit because they think they need to. They don’t exactly know why they need to. Potentially could be just because they have heard the word bantered around with other small business owners. Generally why they actually need to is because they need to borrow money, and a significant sum of money no less. In turn, that person who is lending the money will want an impartial third party to make sure the financial statements are in fact reasonable.

Business bootcamp says that in this case the accountant has determined, upon review, that the financial statements are in fact usable and responsible. Then the financial institution to rely on them as possible and honest in order to lend money.

Business bootcamp also states that large loans, larger than potentially $5000 it’s often underestimated by business owners. In terms of audits in private large companies, some not for profits, will need audited financial statements. They will need these four their members, and for their border governors.

Sometimes owners will say that they need to borrow a significant amount of money. The significant amount of money is near around $5000. In that case a lot of owners say well, they need to review in that case. Consider the fact that if it is not up to about $10 million, then a notice to reader will suffice and is in fact acceptable.

This in fact has changed a lot in recent years by the banks, and wasn’t always the case. These days a lot of people of seen loans of 10 million or more with simply a notice to reader statements. This doesn’t happen very often but it has been known in fact to happen.

Sometimes what happens is the review process can be counter productive to businesses. Sometimes, says business Boot Camp, the client is worse off by getting reviewed, because the bank, although they don’t want a review and audited statements, as they are good with NTR’s.

Often times, however they are no longer good with accepting and believing in annuals. They just want quality interim reports generated by the client.

They’re going to want to make sure that it is in fact quality statements and they are going to query any numbers that are unusual and seem out of place.

The professional obligation for a charter professional accountant is making sure that all of the numbers are arithmetically correct. Consider the fact is the balance sheet balanced, does the income statement flow into the retained earnings, does that retain earnings flow into the balance sheet, etc.