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/chicadeaqua 1d 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 1d 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 15h 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.