We are delighted to announce that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has approved our application to become Registered Auditors. This is great news as we can now offer you a service which, previously, we had to subcontract to business partners. The team is already in place, headed by our Director Lorraine Farnham, who joined us two years ago. Lorraine’s background is in audits, having spent four years at EY and the City doing just that, and it’s also her first love. Yes, it is possible to love audits and Lorraine’s approach to them is, as you’d expect from Nordens, refreshingly different. “I find the business of audits incredibly interesting; it appeals to my inquisitive nature,” says Lorraine. “I know from experience, that the best audits are products of diligence, scrutiny and understanding. It’s all about investigating what’s behind the figures to get the best picture of how a business is performing, where it’s going. It’s not just a fact-finding mission and you must never take anything at face value; scepticism is an asset when it comes to audits.”
The role of auditors, since the demise of Carillion, has been in the spotlight, as have Carillion’s auditors KPMG and Deloitte. Both companies signed off accounts that indicated the business was in good health 12 months before it collapsed with a pension deficit of about £580m and owing over £900m. Investors, who had been deserting the company in droves, clearly knew Carillion wasn’t in good health, so what could they see that the auditors didn’t? “I can’t answer that question, but I do know you can’t conduct an audit wearing blinkers, you have to have an understanding of what’s going on in that industry, not just the company, without that knowledge you’ll never have the full story.”
Not every company needs to be audited. In general, those which do are:
- Registered under Solicitors Regulation Authority
- Regulated under Financial Conduct Authority
- Tenant Management Organisations
- Subsidiaries of listed companies
- Large companies:
- turnover >£10.2m
- total assets > £5.1m
- employees > 50
Lorraine and her team are already off to a flying start, working on audits for construction and media companies. If you’d like to know more about this service, just call us on 020 8530 0720 and Lorraine, or one of her team, will be happy to help.
