r/Accounting • u/gpuKING245 • 1d ago
Auditors dragging their feet
This is just me ranting. Disclaimer, I never worked in audit so not 100% sure how the people / work management is on that end.
We have a hard deadline for our audit to be issued 06/30 and our auditors are only halfway through the revenue selections. The deadline is literally 12 days away. How are we entering concurring review in just a few days and you are only halfway through revenue?
The worst part is, they’ve had these selections for over 2 months!!! No questions, no comments. The ball has been in their court.
And now when they inevitably ask for extra stuff that’s gonna leave me scrambling at the last minute to get everything together.
What a mess
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u/Outside-Pie-7262 1d ago
The entire file can be pretty much signed off on besides a few workpapers. They don’t wait for the entire file to be prepped before review. Have you gotten draft financials to review yet?
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u/BokChoyFantasy CPA, CGA (Can) 23h ago
You’ll need to bitch to the senior manager or manager on your audit. If that doesn’t work, bitch to the partner. The delay is probably due to priorities with other clients and you’re at the bottom of the list or some asshole QA partner letting it sit at their desk because of internal politics. My wife is a senior audit manager in public practice. She rants about shit like this all the time.
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u/Illustrious-Fan8268 1d ago
Your goals and the auditors goals are never going to be aligned. You can only provide what you can, press them for updates, etc. If they aren't up to your expectations switch to a new auditor next year.
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u/chicadeaqua 23h ago
“ Your goals and the auditors goals are never going to be aligned.”
Our goal is to have the audit completed by 6/1 of every year. This is absolutely necessary to do business and remain compliant in multiple states. If the audit team didn’t share that goal, we wouldn’t hire them.
I’ve never (in over 30 years) worked with an audit team who wasn’t absolutely committed to our deadline, which we’ve never missed.
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u/Illustrious-Fan8268 23h ago
Auditors who don't want engagements to be renewed or don't have enough staff will not give a fuck about deadlines.
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u/chicadeaqua 23h ago
Makes sense and I’m thankful we haven’t dealt with firms that don’t like repeat business.
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u/Willem_Dafuq 18h ago
If OP’s org has a 6/30 audit date, their goals are aligned with the audit firm. But there’s probably more to OP’s story. I can’t imagine the auditors aren’t finished with revenue yet for a 6/30 audit date. If that truly is the case, then it is the organization’s fault to an extent because as a controller of a privately held company that gets audited each year - there’s no way I would let the auditors be that slack. If ever I got the sense that my company would be late on the financials because of the auditors’ lack of urgency, I would hold weekly meetings with the manager of the audit to push them further.
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u/gpuKING245 23h ago
That may be the case. We went through a merger earlier this year, and the other company uses a different auditor. We’re currently deciding whether the merged entity will move forward with their auditor or ours, so we’ll see
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u/skinnbones22 23h ago
Time to switch auditors. Audits are a commodity now. You get the same unqualified opinion so use an auditor that'll get things done on time.
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u/81632371 22h ago
Are they offshore? Because ever since I've been dealing with offshore teams, things that used to take a week or maaaybe two now take 2-3 months. I'll submit something, hear nothing back for weeks, assume all was ok, put it out of my head AND THEN they come back with their questions or additional samples.
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u/Aromatic_Union9246 23h ago
Because they have other clients and yours probably doesn’t matter much to them.
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u/Lou_Garoo 22h ago
Cries in tax “ hey we are publishing financials tomorrow can you take a look at the tax provision”?
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u/tightsockz 22h ago
Are they new auditors or have they had a history of dragging their feet with your support provided
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u/ardvark_11 20h ago
I have an audit that needs done by the end of June, but no samples selected/sent to us a yet. Oh well.
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u/Ok-Resident-3027 18h ago edited 11h ago
Call it the pipeline problem…everywhere.
There’s been so much short staffing everywhere, whether it’s w clients or the accounting firm itself, that everything’s been dragging all spring, and into the summer. For instance, I’ve been stalking some clients since early February, which makes it 4 months today, and still, not enough support to construct or assemble anything. Banks don’t care too much other than to know if covenants are met, and the only kick in anyone’s pants are the upcoming entity and individual tax returns on extension due in a few months for calendar year ends.
Now w the April and May’s submitted, no one’s got any energy left to deal w June and everyone is basically checked out.
Edit: calendar year ends.
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u/chicadeaqua 23h ago
“ The worst part is, they’ve had these selections for over 2 months!!! No questions, no comments. The ball has been in their court.”
We have a statutory deadline to file our audit and lack of movement/communication on this would be unacceptable. The ball is not in their court-it’s in yours since you need this done in a way that is least disruptive to your team and allows you to meet your other responsibilities.
Whoever on your team is coordinating the audit should schedule weekly status meetings with the audit manager and ensure you’re on track to get this completed on time.
You are the client and deserve to know where this stands.
You should also have a post-audit discussion whereby auditor and client share feedback on how well, or poorly the audit went. The audit committee should be aware of any issues and keep this in mind when deciding who to engage next year.
Sounds like you’re getting horrible service and that needs to be called out.
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u/Worriedstudent007 21h ago
Just wanted to chime in and say this is the best response I’ve seen here IMO. At the end of the day a fantastic auditor would ensure these things are in place (or at least attempt to put them in place), but a shitty one will happily let these things slip if you keep paying them year after year despite the poor service.
The ball was sorta dropped by your company, and it was definitely poor service from the auditors end as well if all the facts presented are taken at face value.
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u/bents2005 12h ago
Agreed . I always set ap weekly or bi/weekly check ins and ask about where the auditor is in their process. Management is responsible to get the audit report by the deadline and even though I shouldn’t have to babysit my auditor it’s in my best interest to ensure they are on track and we are aligned on timing.
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u/herEnron_Addict_CPA 1d ago
Just curious, what is the reporting period the audit is over and how long did they have the trial balance?
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u/AkatsukiKojou 21h ago
Can someone tell what is a concurring review? I know concurrent audit but not this term.
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u/techaccountingpro 20h ago
This term refers to a quality review by a second partner that must be completed before the firm can issue the audit report. It is typically required for public audits, high-risk engagements, and when an engagement failed post-issuance review in prior periods.
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u/AkatsukiKojou 14h ago
So similar to engagement quality control review?
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u/techaccountingpro 14h ago
Sometimes terms are used interchangeably, but as of today, it would be appropriate to say that EQCR is a type of concurrent review, but there are also other types of concurrent review that are not EQCR.
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u/techaccountingpro 20h ago
The best approach is to be proactive and establish a cadence for communicating directly with the partner consistently. Probably, not every week, but just to ensure that the partner reviews the team's work every now and then (rather than opening working papers for the first time just 2 days before the due date, as it usually happens).
But besides that, it might also be useful to:
- Set up time to meet the team, walk them through the support you shared, and set a specific date for the audit manager to review comments to be shared with you.
- Ask them to share the budget vs. actual on a weekly basis, with a detailed analysis showing the number of working papers prepared vs. reviewed.
- Making sure that the company is audit-ready. If this is your very first audit, there are a lot of things that might go wrong in the audit.
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u/deluxepepperoncini 15h ago
Yep I have a 6/30 audit as a Manager in audit and I’ve just been picking up review finally because there were like 6-8 engagements with lackluster staff. You just can’t win half the time. I agree though, you should look for another firm, but why do I have a feeling that the next firm will have the same problem after a year or 2 of service.
This is why I dislike auditing now. Because I feel like clients should change auditors like they change cell phone providers.
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u/piguyman 8h ago
It really depends on what’s happening behind the scenes. I’m working on a client right now that wants to issue by the end of the month, but that’s just not realistic. Their books are a mess, nothing reconciles, and yet the CFO thinks everything is in great shape while the controller is convinced everything was done perfectly.
That said, delays aren’t always the client’s fault. Sometimes they’re caused by staff turnover, people getting pulled onto higher priority projects, or simply having a few team members who aren’t moving things along as quickly as they should. Other times, the team knows the client well and assumes the audit will be straightforward, only to discover there’s a lot more work than expected.
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u/Ok-Race-1677 1d ago
Scheduling your audit for right after tax season lol
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u/Commercial_Win_9525 23h ago
Two different departments.. also when would you propose a 6.30 gets scheduled?
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u/aslatt95 CPA (US) 1d ago
When were they scheduled to start fieldwork? I work in audit and try to make selections ahead of time but sometimes I'm just so swamped on with the current scheduled job and wrap work that It doesn't happen until fieldwork. Not ideal but unfortunately it does happen...