HOT FILE REVIEW
We review a file prior to you signing the audit report.
The purpose of this review is to address specific risks or provide appropriate safeguards if you have independence conflicts.
We are happy to provide this service for unlisted and listed audit clients.
Why do you need one
There can be many reasons.
In certain cases the FRC Ethical Code requires that you have one – or commercial risk management might lead to a desire for a hot review. Such cases might be:
Why
Why do you need one
where your non-audit fee exceeds your audit fee
Why
your fee from the client exceeds 10% of practice income (or income from which the RI’s rewards are calculated) and is lower than 15% (where an external hot review is required by FRC Ethical Standard 4.31);
Why
risk issues of a compliance or commercial nature, such as the pending sale of the client’s business, which may lead to your firm receiving a review visit by the incoming auditor on sale of your client’s business to a new owner.
Furthermore, we provide Engagement Quality Control Reviews (EQCRs) for some of our clients on listed entities so we have experience across a number of markets, sectors and client sizes which we can bring to bear.
We can review your files onsite or at our office.
Our output
We provide a list of queries and discuss these with you. We will also provide a document summarizing the scope and detail of our review.
Timing
We are aware that the timing of completion of audits can slip. Therefore at the outset we ask you to let us know when you would like this review to be booked in. If audit completion and the provision of this review is likely to slip, we ask you to contact us as soon as possible in order that we can change the allocated time. If we can review the files from our office, it negates travel and other logistical complications and makes reviews easier to fit into our diary, particularly if there is slippage.
Where ICAEW requires one as a condition of Registration
This can happen, either as a result of a QAD monitoring visit where the Regulator requires confirmation that processes are improving as a result of their findings; or if you have a newly appointed RI, or a long-existing RI who has signed no audit reports for some while. In both cases we can help. We draft a report for you to submit to the Regulator.
Get in Touch
If you'd like to explore this service with us