When it comes to financial reporting, there needs to be consistent compliance in the way it is represented. Studying diploma in IFRS Online Classes brings in a kind of discipline that can make you a top professional. You can become a subject matter expert and at this moment it opens doors for a great career in the finance education industry.The best way to study IFRS is through Contetra. It is one of the most trusted companies for taxation and has produced hundreds of rank holders in CA. If you are looking for the diploma in ifrs online course then visit : https://contetra.com/diploma-in-ifrs-training/
2. Content
• Appoint an audit coordinator
• Finalizing the draft of Annual Report well before the
deadline
• Time your adjustments accordingly
• Calculating the added value in inventory
• Functional Fixed Asset Register
• Know the Importance of Internal Auditors
• Prompt Management Letters
• Derive more value from the Interim Audit
• Prevent Staff Burnout
• Conclusion
• Contact
3. Appoint an
audit
coordinator
• The first and foremost step to ensure no lags in
communication and timely delivery is to appoint an audit
coordinator.
• The focussed role of the Audit Coordinator is to manage
the whole audit process and coordinate both (interim and
final) visits with the audit team and should not be
assigned any other tasks.
• The person may not be particularly from Finance team but
should be aware of the dynamics of the company. Usually,
you may find the ideal person in the accounts payable
team (PS, they’re more popular than the CFOs) or
someone with strong interpersonal and management
skills.
4. Finalizing the draft of Annual Report well before the deadline
Multiple stakeholders are invested in the financials of the company and
are eagerly waiting for the annual reports to understand in what direction
the organization is moving.
Which is why CFOs need to ensure that the annual report is prepared and
reviewed well before the scheduled Board Meeting.
To make sure that this is done, they must work backwards on the
timelines to close the books of accounts.
5. Time your
adjustments
accordingly
• Irrespective of however automated your processes are,
every organization passes adjustment entries during the
quarter and year-end.
• While we understand it’s a hustle period and the
accountants are in a hurry to reconcile balances, as a
senior leader you must make sure that your finance team
keeps a track of those adjustments i.e., the date, the
nature and amount.
• This will make it easier for the auditors to trace those
adjustments leading to minimal back and forth with the
finance team.
6. Calculating
the added
value in
inventory
• It is advisable that stock count is done as a continuous process rather
than just a periodic activity (i.e., quarter end or year-end).
• It is better to practice a Rolling stock count (throughout the year) and
keep the books updated accordingly.
• One of the most time-consuming activities in an audit is to estimate
the value of inventory. In the absence of a definite number, auditors
tend to follow a conservative approach which may not always be a
favourable position for the company.
• Which is why it is better to calculate the value addition at different
stages of inventory (Work-in-progress, Finished goods) which could
save hours of audit time.
7. Functional Fixed Asset Register
CFOs must at all costs, avoid a scenario where, during year end, an adjustment entry is passed to adjust the written
down value of fixed assets due to anomalies in its valuation detected by the auditors.
Such an adjustment entry would not just impact the bottom-line (Net profits) but also hamper the taxes for the
period.
The key to ensure this, is efficiently maintaining a fixed asset register (which even though mandatory both by the
Companies Act, 2013 and the Income Tax act, is considered a bane by the Finance team).
A key personnel needs to be assigned to maintain the FAR and conduct periodic valuation of the Fixed Assets to
capture any anomalies. This activity is also essential for a business to forecast its Net Cash flows from multiple
projects.
8. Know the Importance of Internal Auditors
The most efficient step to reduce the year-end hassle is to appoint an In-House Audit Team. Internal
auditors can significantly ease out the audit process.
As they are familiar with the working of the company, they will be efficient with providing training to new
accounting staff, introducing cost-saving exercises, and coordinating with external auditors.
Today, one of the biggest headaches of a CFO is to ensure that all employees are aligned with the
organization processes. Even at established corporate houses, this usually calls for the assistance of an
expert.
To demonstrate, we enabled finance transformation at one of the leading e-commerce giants of the world
by setting up their entire finance shared services for their seller portal- right form training 1000+
resources on our learning platform to making them ready for deployment.”
9. Prompt Management Letters
It is advisable to insist the audit team to send the management letters
promptly so as to avoid any tardy rectification in the audit report at
the last moment.
In a similar fashion, Finance leaders must also prioritise to send out
the replies to those management letters immediately to resolve the
discrepancy.
10. Derive more value from the Interim Audit
In addition to the external auditors, it is important to conduct interim audit to test out compliance
with new systems in the business.
Exponential growth does not wait for you to set up processes and new challenges keep cropping up
– especially for the finance team who are sometimes expected to derive business insights
posthumously – without any control on process of data collection.
“At one of silicon valley’s AI unicorn valued at over 3 billion dollars, we ran point on all their finance
operations and ensured that during an interim audit all preliminary audit work is conducted prior to
the fiscal year-end (it is safe to say that both the finance team as well as the auditors have since
then had pretty stress-free year ends ”
11. Prevent Staff Burnout
As someone who is responsible for the year-end process and accountable for the accuracy of
the same, CFOs must ensure that their finance teams are vigilant at all times! The year -end
being a time of late nights and extreme pressure, employees are bound to knock themselves
out with work and are often at the ends of fatigue and lethargy.
An unsatisfied and overwhelming workspace would increase the chances of human errors. At
such times, it is the responsibility of the CFO to keep the finance team’s spirits high!
12. Conclusion
• When it comes to financial reporting, there needs to be consistent compliance in
the way it is represented. Studying diploma in IFRS Online Classes brings in a
kind of discipline that can make you a top professional. You can become a
subject matter expert and at this moment it opens doors for a great career in
the finance education industry.
The best way to study IFRS is through Contetra. It is one of the most trusted
companies for taxation and has produced hundreds of rank holders in CA. If you
are looking for the diploma in ifrs online course then visit :
https://contetra.com/diploma-in-ifrs-training/