Auditing practices should be reviewed for validity and scope. Auditors are responsible for investigating and assessing the integrity of the organization’s internal controls and procedures as well as the effectiveness of its management policies, systems, and procedures. The auditor’s report will help the CPA to determine if the Corporation’s operations meet the criteria set forth in the Standards on Auditing Corporate and Government Relationships (SACGR). If they do, the corporation will need to revise its policies or take other measures. If they don’t, they will need to correct their deficiencies.
When you take my decoding of corporate financial communications, you are only addressing a portion of the various aspects of internal controls. It is your responsibility to ensure that all aspects of internal control are satisfied for a successful conclusion. You cannot effectively address all aspects of corporate risk management when you are doing your own risk analysis. The process should be combined with outside independent analysis.
There are two types of audits, the audit and the review. Internal auditors typically request financial statements to be sent to them. At this point the auditor will review the financial statements and make recommendations. The audit is normally an independent assessment and will not have any influence over the management of the company.
On the other hand, a review is the examination of financial statements by an outside auditor in order to assist in determining whether or not the financial statements are free from material misstatements. If the company is not prepared properly, an auditor can find such flaws. This type of examination is not intended to provide information to the management on an ongoing basis. However, it may provide an opportunity for the management to improve the way they conduct business.
When a company is young and developing, there is little to no record of internal control issues. This means that there is very little objective evidence available to the accountant who does the audit. This results in a relatively subjective opinion about the company’s financial condition. As a result, an auditor will almost certainly recommend that the company cut costs, change prices, sell assets or do other things which will further the goals of the management. When you take my Decoding of Corporate Financial Communications in this context, the result is failure in the accomplishment of the stated objectives by the management.
On the other hand, when a company is mature and an internal audit is in full swing, the objective evidence reveals quite the opposite. The financial statements reveal what a company has really been up to not how well they have done (which was the focus of the original financial statements). This is because the original statements were typically made in response to requests from the company’s bankers or financial statements were requested by accounting professionals who were looking to establish the solvency of the company. When you take my Decoding of Corporate Financial Communications in this context, you are basically saying that the managers and officers of the company have been involved in fraudulent activities in order to put the company into the red.
In short, you could say that when it comes to the matter of corporate financial communications, “Do what they say, not what they do.” When you take my Decoding of Corporate Financial Communications seriously, you can see where the real problems lie. You can see that executives and other high-level managers have become more concerned with maintaining a good reputation rather than the real task at hand, which is to run the company profitably. You can see where the company is going downhill and this is why I recommend to people involved in corporate finance that they get every single financial statement and then have their lawyers look at them for legal liability.