Audit of settlement transactions: important practical aspects

The activity of any enterprise is obligatorymust be controlled in order to avoid any mistakes and distortions in the company's reporting, as the results of such errors may become incorrect decisions of users of financial statements, and as a consequence, such errors and distortions can lead to a multiple increase in losses. Since the calculations of the enterprise with counterparties are the most important part of the firm's activity, audit of settlement operations is carried out.

First, let's figure out who and for whatcan calculate the company. The company's counterparties can be conditionally divided into two global groups: debtors and creditors. Debtors are all those who owe something to the firm, be it money, goods, services or any other value, and creditors are all those who owe anything to the firm. Audit of settlement operations involves checking the calculations with both, and with others.

What are the procedures for this type of verification? Audit of settlement operations provides for the following activities.

First of all, it is necessary to establish the realityexistence of obligations of the firm to someone, or debtors to the firm. Various procedures are envisaged for this, such as checking primary documents, bank statements, and in special cases sending special letters to counterparties. So, if an audit of deposit operations is conducted, the auditor can send a letter to the bank in which the deposit is kept, requesting to specify the amount on the deposit, the interest payments and their frequency.

Next, we need to evaluate the correctness of the mappingin the accounting documents of all aspects of settlement transactions. This is especially important in the case when objects that are not owned by the firm participate in operations, that is, if an audit of leasing operations is conducted. In this case, it is important to note, whether the leased objects are not recorded on the company's balance sheet, which, in fact, do not belong to it. It is also important to check that all rental payments are properly displayed in the documents, including that it is important to ensure that they are correctly transferred to the cost of production, but only if the object takes part in the production process. In addition, when conducting an audit of settlement leasing operations, it is necessary to remember that depreciation is accrued by the lessor and reduces its gross income, so it is not necessary to charge depreciation on the objects taken for rent. If a violation of this rule is found, corrective operations must be carried out, however, this may lead to subsequent questions from the tax and other inspection bodies.

Audit of settlement operations takes, as a rule,quite a long time compared to other types of checks. The reason for this is diversity and a large number of calculations that are conducted with both buyers and suppliers. Moreover, after carrying out an audit of settlement transactions, there is often a need to conduct other types of verification, for example, concerning stocks or fixed assets. This is because if there were violations in transactions with suppliers or buyers of the enterprise, it is logical to assume that not only the financial side of the issue was affected, but there are also discrepancies in the real availability of certain objects in the enterprise.

That is why the audit of settlement transactions is consideredone of the most important types of inspections of the financial condition of the enterprise. The qualitative carrying out of this type of inspection is a pledge of the financial health of the enterprise and the absence of problems with the inspecting bodies in future periods.