Assurance

Audits require common sense as well as technical expertise.

Our teams can provide you with innovative assurance services in:

financial statement audits
financial statement compilations
financial statement reviews
IFRS conversions
reporting on controls at service organisations.

Why Multibusiness?

We have the size, scope, breadth, depth and global reach to serve dynamic organisations around the world. Our teams can provide you with assurance services that deliver real value and support investor confidence.

We coordinate, cooperate and communicate based on our shared global strategy, which ultimately leads to greater consistency and better quality.

Audit quality monitoring
Global audit technology

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)

Our member firm IFRS advisers can help you navigate the complexity of the Standards so you can focus your time and effort on running your business.

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), are a set of global accounting standards developed by the International Accounting Standards Board for the preparation of public company financial statements. With well over 100 countries using them, they are fast becoming the global accounting language.

Using IFRSs can help increase the quality, comparability and transparency of your financial information. Applying them correctly will increase your company’s credibility and improve access to credit and investment opportunities.

The Standards are very detailed and technical. To the untrained eye, they can appear hard to navigate. But at Multibusiness, we have people who are very well versed in their intricacies and can translate them into language that you can understand and apply to your financial statements.

To help you navigate the complexity of the standards, a selection of related content is included below.

Financial Instruments – IFRS 9 Guidelines

All businesses hold financial instruments in some form, from cash and trade receivables at the simplest end of the scale to complex derivatives at the other.

Accounting for them under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has always been complex and this is set to increase further with IFRS 9 ‘Financial Instruments’ fundamentally rewriting the accounting rules. IFRS 9 introduces a new approach for financial asset classification; a more forward-looking expected loss model; and major new requirements on hedge accounting.

We have gained extensive insights into the challenges presented by the new Standard and can work with you to help prepare for them. Review our IFRS 9 publications below to start getting your business ready for IFRS 9. Our series highlights the impairment requirements and classifying and measuring financial instruments as well as a newsletter on the hedge accounting requirements.

Our related guidance also addresses the classification of a financial instrument as liability or equity under IAS 32 ‘Financial Instruments: Presentation’, a critical issue for management when evaluating alternative options.

Mergers & Acquisitions – Accounting For Business Combinations

Mergers and acquisitions (business combinations) can have a fundamental impact on the acquirer’s operations, resources and strategies.

The assessment of whether one entity controls another (i.e., when a parent-subsidiary relationship exists) is essential to the preparation of financial statements under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

A number of issues relating to consolidated financial statements can have a significant effect on your business. Our guidance relates to applying the requirements of IFRS 10 ‘Consolidated Financial Statements’, where we highlight the challenges you will face. We also help you to be able to identify and value intangible assets in a business combination when accounting under IFRS 3 ‘Business Combinations’.

Corporate Reporting – IFRS Financial Statements

Preparing your financial statements under IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is challenging for any business.

Each year the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) publishes new Standards with the potential to significantly impact both the presentation of the primary statements and the accompanying disclosures.

There are a number of best practices when preparing and presenting financial statements. To enable yours to be an effective communication tool with your investors and stakeholders, we guide you through some of these in our publication ‘Telling your Story: Making your financial statements an effective communication tool’.

We can also help you to identify which Standards will apply for your reporting period (using our Navigating the Changes to IFRS publication) and provide practical tools, illustrating both interim and a full year set of financial statements prepared under IFRS.

Accounting For Revenue Under IFRS 15

June 2014 marked a landmark achievement when the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued IFRS 15 ‘Revenue from Contracts with Customers’.

It will provide a major boost for investors looking to compare company performance across borders.

Nearly all businesses generate revenue and the likelihood is that many are entering into contractual arrangements today that will be accounted for differently under the new Standard.

A number of challenges will follow the new Standard. Our special edition newsletter on IFRS 15 explains all you need to know about the changes and how your business can prepare for them.

As well as telling you about the Standard in general terms, we also provide industry specific guidance for a number of different sectors.

Leasing

Leasing – A New Era Of Accounting Under IFRS 16

IFRS 16 ‘Leases’ represents the first major overhaul in lease accounting in over 30 years.

The Standard brings fundamental changes to lease accounting that replace previous accounting that is considered no longer fit for purpose.

IFRS 16 will affect most companies involved in leasing that report under International Financial reporting Standards (IFRS). It will have a substantial impact on the financial statements of lessees of property and high value equipment – requiring that leases be placed on-balance sheet by recognising a ‘right-of-use’ asset and a lease liability.

Further information on the changes and how you can prepare for them can be found below.

IFRS 17 – Insurance Contracts

IFRS 17 ‘Insurance Contracts’ represents the culmination of a twenty-year project by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to improve the comparability of companies that issue insurance contracts

Replacing IFRS 4

The new Standard replaces the similarly titled IFRS 4 (which was issued some time ago as an interim Standard) and will have an impact on data, technology solutions and investor relations as well as financial reporting. The new Standard has an effective date of 1 January 2023 but may be applied earlier (subject to considerations imposed by local legislation).

Audit

Audit Quality Monitoring

A key component of our global strategy is to promote the delivery of consistent, high quality client service worldwide.

Having a robust process of quality control is one of the most effective ways to guarantee we deliver high quality services to our clients.

To accomplish this, each member firm submits to an inspection of its quality control system at least once every three years.

This system monitors compliance with professional standards and global audit policies. It is conducted by independent partners and managers from other member firms under the direction of the global audit quality control leader.

The inspection process includes an evaluation of the member firm’s assurance policies, benchmarking these against the international organisation. The team reviews financial statements, audit reports, engagement work papers and files, and interviews partners and staff.

The report on a firm’s quality-control system will report one of the following:

suitably designed and operating effectively (an unqualified report)
suitably designed and operating effectively except for one or more significant deficiencies (an except-for report)
having material weaknesses in the design or operation of the quality-control system (an adverse report).

When the review system identifies a deficiency, the member firm is expected to address the deficiency and document its action plan to address the findings within a reasonable period of time and submit appropriate documentation. When follow up actions are required by member firms to address findings identified during the review system, a further visit or remote assessment is made to review progress in implementing these actions.

Global Audit Technology

We apply our global audit methodology through an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite.

The suite includes:

Voyager: a tool for assisting audit teams in the identification of financial statement risks and linkage to the processes and internal controls established to address those risks. Voyager also assists audit teams in documenting, evaluating and testing internal controls and designing an appropriate substantive response.

TBeam: a trial balance and workpaper generation tool that is fully integrated with Voyager, allowing audit teams to automatically update lead sheets for changes to the trial balance, perform analytical procedures, evaluate misstatements and create standard and custom workpapers.

Voyager Information System (VIS) Tracking: an application that provides member firms with the ability to view information about their assurance clients contained in Voyager files; manage and monitor concurring review policies; control and monitor the archiving process for annual and interim periods; and control the storage and protection of archived Voyager files.

Client acceptance: an application that enforces policies and procedures that each member firm must adopt to accept a new assurance engagement.

Consultation: an application that enables member firm audit teams to document consultations with firm specialists on accounting, ethical and auditing matters.