Not mentioned at interview…audit

[ZippyLemonSloth]

Accounts professionals, would you be annoyed if you found out in your first week in a new role that the company had reached the threshold for audit the first time in the previous FY and that the audit was starting the following week for accounts that need to be filed in 6 weeks, one extension having already been granted? For context I took on the role on the understanding that I am QBE (5 years accounts experience) and would want and need support as it was a big jump in skillset. The company approached me with the role and did not mention anything about the audit in the interview. I am the most senior person in accounts in the company, my job title is Finance Manager and I am paid £40k. I have explained that I feel quite out of my depth to be dealing with the audit soon after starting and I am unqualified. We have an external accountant prepping the statutory accounts but they have failed to communicate well or provide draft financials. Plus I have been given no training on the archaic ERP system!

Not ideal but audit is an expected part of the skill set for me in finance, and has been for most every role I'vehad past the analyst level. Would be annoyed they weren't upfront about it though.
Depending on your ERP and the specific audit nature, there may be a lot you can extract from the system. I am a Financial controller specialising in Inventory, so if you have any stock related questions I'd be happy to help

I think if the role is Finance Manager then it's a reasonable expectation that you could handle an audit and statutory accounts.

I would think that your role would be preparing schedules and analysis for the auditor to review (i.e. basically to extract data from the ERP) rather than prepare and interpret the financial statements. So I would start with learning the ERP.

But sure, it's a bit of a baptism of fire.

At least the audit might show what you are taking on and flag any major issues.

As an accountant, I think audit is bread & butter stuff.

I am not certain '5 years accounts experience' = QBE though, I hope your employers know that and don't expect you to have the knowledge and actual qualification would give.

So the ERP isn’t great, for example you can post negative debits (?), can’t run a comparative p&l, can’t run a retrospective aged debtors, exporting to excel involves extensive reformatting each time (yes I probably need to write a macro or equivalent), it doesn’t support using more than one window, plus the accountants map nominals differently. All these I can work around and aren’t audit related but it’s just very faffy. I guess I just want a good moan to people who can appreciate the ball ache of working in a company where nobody understands accounts and it’s just a function seen as an afterthought, but at the same time expect immediate output from someone who specifically said at interview that they are not qualified and would need support. Also our external accountant has already said, ‘I don’t envy you, it’s not going to be an easy audit and it is beyond our remit to support you’. Oh and the directors thinks that because they own other companies I have to provide accounts function for them as well, even though they are separate legal entities, no group structure, and my contract does not mention anything about them. Sorry this is very ranty!

Can understand the wish to rant. Re negative debits, that's common to many ERPs and depends on the configuration, can usually be disabled for more clarity going forward.

Re practical advice, what MCRs and records do you have from your predecessor? Journal backups, workload approval logs, exceptional posting authorisation, balance sheet recs and GRNI release authorisation will be your friends when trying to clear audit, as well as robust backups of your exceptionals

Take a deep breath, stand back and be professional. I'd suggest 1. Agree with the external accountants what they will need to prep the stat accounts 2. Go over last year's stat file, audit correspondence and management letter, identifying any issues that haven't been dealt with yet 3. Make friends with the auditors 4. Go back to your boss with a plan of action identifying exactly what you will need to do the accounts and get through audit, and how long it will take (allowing for any BAU stuff along the way). If that means filing deadlines are missed or penalties incurred it's not your fault. If they don't agree, start job hunting...

Well if the company has a firm of external accountants preparing the stat accounts, then surely it is they who will be coming to conduct the audit. Presumably they will be familiar with the existing set-up and all you can do is point them in the general direction of all the invoices, bank statements, vat returns, cash books and whatever else. They will be auditing the financial year that closed ages ago, so they aren't going to expect you to know anything about it.

Take a chill pill and let the auditors do their job. They will ask you for what they need, they won't expect you to explain any of it.