by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Aug 29, 2020 | Blog, News
How is your AML Compliance?
In last week’s blog we wrote about the recent publication of the 2019 Annual Report of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board (CARB). The section on Money Laundering inspections will be of interest to readers.
Money Laundering Compliance Review – Every firm is required to perform an annual money laundering compliance review and document it, with findings for follow-up action. The review should involve a thorough examination of the firm’s AML procedures, including their application on client files, a review of the firm’s AML Policies & Procedures Manual and a review of AML training within the firm. Firms are also required to have prepared and documented a Firm Wide Business Risk Assessment.
During any subsequent Institute inspection the remedial action, identified in the firm’s review, will be expected to have been completed or substantially progressed.
AML Training – Firms must have procedures to monitor that all personnel involved in client work (not just client facing staff) receive up to date AML training.
Annual Return declarations – Firms must complete their annual returns every year. Often the AML section has errors. The Quality Assurance Committee of the Institute, to which the Professional Standard Department reports, takes incorrect declarations on the Annual Return very seriously and regulatory penalties can result where inaccuracies are identified during an inspection.
Our February 2020 up to date AML Policies & Procedures Manual is available on our site for immediate download in Word format and it contains everything you need to be up to date.
We also have several audit template letters that are up to date for GDPR and Coronavirus (COVID-19) downloadable for immediate tailoring in MS Word.
For a full list of all our webinar recordings, please go to our webinar site here. They may be viewed at any time for 12 months after the date of purchase.
We also have a complete set of letters of representation in our publications store, updated for Coronavirus (COVID-19), and letters of engagement for immediate download here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Aug 24, 2020 | Blog, News
Institute Inspection Visit Results for 2019
The publication of the 2019 Annual Report of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board (CARB) makes interesting reading. It includes the results of the inspections carried out by the Professional Standards Department that were concluded in 2019.
Here we look at an extract from the report where 113 audit inspections were concluded, which is around 15% of the number of licensed audit firms in all of Ireland. 29% of the audit visit results were unsatisfactory or nearly one in three visits, produces less than ideal results.
In 2019, one firm had its audit registration withdrawn by the Quality Assurance Committee while three individuals had their Practising Certificates withdrawn.
In order to make sure you are and stay compliant, please take a moment to view our range of webinars and tools on our website.
We also have a webinar available on our website that specifically helps prepare for such a visit, called ‘Preparing for an Audit Quality Review Visit’ available now for immediate download.
We also have several audit template letters that are up to date for GDPR and Coronavirus (COVID-19) downloadable for immediate tailoring in MS Word.
For a full list of all our webinar recordings, please go to our webinar site here. They may be viewed at any time for 12 months after the date of purchase.
We also have a complete set of letters of representation in our publications store, updated for the Coronavirus (COVID-19), and letters of engagement for immediate download here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Aug 17, 2020 | Blog, News
The recent reminder from the Chartered Accountants Ireland Professional Standards Department about findings on audit review visits, could have been written ten years ago or more. The same issues keep coming up. They are essentially about the lack of adequate evidence and lack of documentation of the audit work performed.
There are some critical concepts involved in the ISAs on audit documentation (ISA 230) and audit evidence (ISA 500). Space does not allow us room to list all the requirements but a brief reminder of the key ones is contained here:
Audit documentation:
- Ensure the documentation is sufficient to allow an experienced auditor, having no previous connection with the audit, to understand the audit work done, the evidence obtained and the results derived from that work (including the assembly of the audit file within 60 days from the date of the audit report);
- Understand the significant matters arising and the conclusions and significant professional judgements made in arriving at the conclusions (e.g. going concern during CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19).
- Even where audit work is performed as part of accounts preparation procedures (there is nothing wrong with this per se), the audit evidence obtained from accounts preparation work, must be documented in line with ISA 230.
Audit evidence
It is critical that audit evidence is collected during audits with scepticism in mind.
As is the case in most SME audits, the auditor has few other options but to rely on information produced by the client entity or client personnel. In this case, the auditor must evaluate whether the information is sufficiently robust for the auditor’s purposes and assess whether it is sufficiently accurate/complete and whether it is sufficiently precise/detailed for the auditor’s purposes.
Too often firms fail to get this right, as they rely too heavily on management supplied data, when neither the Directors nor their personnel are not trained or sufficiently experienced to adequately satisfy this purpose.
We have an Audit Update webinar available on our website to remind you of the requirements of the ISAs and how to prepare a good audit file. We also have several audit template letters on this page, up to date for the GDPR and the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
For a full list of all our webinar recordings, please got to our webinar site here. They may be viewed at any time for 12 months after the date of purchase.
We also have a complete set of letters of representation in our publications store, updated for the Coronavirus (COVID-19), and letters of engagement for immediate download here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Aug 10, 2020 | Blog, News
Now is a good time to update your CPD over the summer months before the crazy busy tax season starts. Of course, nowadays there is no such thing as a quiet time, so it is best to plan your CPD time now. Why not set aside time on Friday afternoon this week to do a catch up. All our webinars come with a quiz to test your learning and an automatic CPD certificate is issued once you have viewed the material.
Some of the relevant topics on our website include the following webinars:
Accounting for Impairments
The webinar online video is 52 minutes in length, broken into two parts. It deals with many issues that are topical now under the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Inventories which are treated differently than other impaired assets;
• Impairment trigger points;
• Testing Goodwill for impairment;
• How to recognise an impairment loss;
• Disclosures;
• Small entities – what are the Section 1A disclosures?
FRS 102 The new Regime from 1 January 2019
• FRS 102 – the Triennial Review;
• Directors’ loans – ‘small’ entities, relaxation of some of the amortisation requirements;
• Intangibles in a business combination;
• Investment property rented within a group;may be v
• Classification of certain financial instruments;
• Definition of financial institution;
• Reconciliation of net debt in statement of cash flows; and
For a full list of all our webinar recordings, please got to our webinar site here. They may be viewed at any time for 12 months after the date of purchase.
We also have a complete set of complementary letters of representation, updated for the Coronavirus (COVID-19), and letters of engagement for immediate download here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Jul 7, 2020 | Blog, News
Now is a good time to update your CPD over the summer months before the crazy busy tax season starts. Of course, nowadays there is no such thing as a quiet time, so it is best to plan your CPD time now. Why not set aside time on Friday afternoon this week to do a catch up. All our webinars come with a quiz to test your learning and an automatic CPD certificate is issued once you have viewed the material.
Some of the relevant topics on our website include the following webinars:
Accounting for Impairments
The webinar online video is 52 minutes in length, broken into two parts. It deals with many issues that are topical now under the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Inventories which are treated differently than other impaired assets;
• Impairment trigger points;
• Testing Goodwill for impairment;
• How to recognise an impairment loss;
• Disclosures;
• Small entities – what are the Section 1A disclosures?
FRS 102 The new Regime from 1 January 2019
• FRS 102 – the Triennial Review;
• Directors’ loans – ‘small’ entities, relaxation of some of the amortisation requirements;
• Intangibles in a business combination;
• Investment property rented within a group;may be v
• Classification of certain financial instruments;
• Definition of financial institution;
• Reconciliation of net debt in statement of cash flows; and
For a full list of all our webinar recordings, please got to our webinar site here. They may be viewed at any time for 12 months after the date of purchase.
We also have a complete set of complementary letters of representation, updated for the Coronavirus (COVID-19), and letters of engagement for immediate download here.
by John McCarthy Consulting Ltd. | Jun 29, 2020 | Blog, News
Does your ISQC1 Audit Quality Control Manual deal with:
• Root Cause Analysis(best practice developments following cold file reviews) and
• Section 934 I (3) of the Companies Act, 2014 – as introduced by the Companies (Statutory Audits) Act, 2018 from 21 September 2018, dealing with reporting systems within audit firms to allow audit personnel make reports of relevant contraventions under the Companies Act, 2014?
If not, then take a look at the latest June 2020 edition of our ISQC1 Audit Quality Control Manual for only €150+VAT. Available here for immediate download.
The Manual enables audit firms to comply with the latest audit quality control requirements and has a template to comply with the 2016 edition of the International Education Standard 8 (IES 8) – the standard that addresses the ongoing education (CPD requirements) of Responsible Individual auditors.’
Other up to date template letters of engagement/representation (including many dealing with COVID-19) are available at our online store
