Information Technology
Fast growth across several entities outpaces what the finance team can reliably report.
Fix the reporting before the business outgrows it.
Audit preparation, done before the auditors arrive
Audit Support is for businesses, CPA firms and accounting firms preparing for an audit. We prepare the workpapers, reconciliations, schedules and documentation your auditors will ask for. We do not carry out the audit itself — that stays with your independent auditor.
Getting the paperwork ready before review begins
Preparing for an audit takes considerable time, and it usually lands on the same finance team that still has month-end to close. Audit Support takes on that preparation — workpapers, reconciliations, supporting schedules and documentation — so it is ready when the auditors start rather than assembled while they wait.
To be clear about what this is: Audit Support prepares for an audit. It does not conduct one. Source360 does not perform independent statutory audits and does not issue audit opinions. That work stays with your appointed auditor. Our role is to make sure the information they need is complete, reconciled and organised before they begin.
It is a different job from our other services, though it draws on all of them. Accounting Solutions keeps the records through the year. Financial Reporting prepares the statements. Tax Intelligence handles the returns. Audit Support prepares the evidence behind all of it for the point at which an audit examines it.
When businesses bring in audit support
These are the situations where an audit is coming and the preparation is not going to fit around everything else.
Incomplete documentation
Supporting documents exist but are spread across systems and people, so pulling together what the auditors want takes days rather than hours.
Limited internal resources
The finance team is already fully committed, and audit preparation would mean something else slipping to make room for it.
Reconciliation backlogs
Accounts have not been reconciled recently, and the differences need tracing before anything can be presented for review.
Schedules running late
Supporting schedules are prepared each year from scratch, which pushes the whole timetable back before the audit has started.
Tight audit deadlines
The reporting deadline leaves little room between closing the year and having everything ready for examination.
Auditor requests piling up
Information requests arrive faster than the team can answer them, and each unanswered one holds up the next stage.
What audit preparation draws on
Audit Support works from the financial information the other services produce. The better organised that information already is, the less preparation an audit needs.
Built on Accounting Solutions
Where we keep the records through the year, the reconciliations and documentation an audit calls for are already in place rather than reconstructed at the end.
Supporting Financial Reporting
The statements Financial Reporting prepares are what an audit examines. Audit Support assembles the evidence sitting behind them.
Alongside Tax Intelligence
Tax filings and financial statements draw on the same records, so what was filed and what is presented for audit agree with each other.
Extended by Outsourcing Services
Where audit season needs more hands than the team has, Outsourcing Services supplies dedicated professionals for the duration of the engagement.
What you get from preparing properly
Ready before it starts
The audit begins with the information already assembled, rather than with a request list the team is still working through.
Documentation in one place
Supporting documents are organised against what the auditors asked for, so finding any single item does not become its own task.
Fewer delays along the way
Where the preparation is complete, the audit progresses instead of pausing each time something has to be located or explained.
Reconciliations that hold up
Accounts are reconciled and the differences explained before anyone else looks at them, rather than during review.
Your finance team keeps working
Month-end, reporting and payments continue through audit season, because the preparation is not being absorbed by the same people.
Quicker answers to requests
When auditors ask for something, the supporting information is already organised, so the response goes back promptly.
From readiness review to a completed audit
Every engagement follows the same four steps, so preparation starts early enough to be useful rather than reactive.
Readiness review
We review what exists against what the audit will ask for, so gaps are identified while there is still time to close them.
Preparation
Workpapers, reconciliations and supporting schedules are prepared, and documentation is organised against the audit requirements.
During the audit
As requests come in from the auditors, we prepare the responses and locate the supporting information, so your team is not pulled off other work.
After the audit
Anything the audit raised is recorded and addressed, so next year's preparation starts further ahead than this year's did.
Different sectors, the same preparation
Audit requirements differ by industry and by size. The need for the underlying documentation to be complete and reconciled does not. These are the industries we work in most often.
Healthcare
Regulation and cost pressure make it hard to keep an up-to-date financial picture.
Compliance and performance reporting belong in one view.
Manufacturing
Margin pressure and multi-site operations obscure true cost and profitability at unit level.
Consolidation reveals where margin is actually created.
Professional Services
Utilisation, billing and partner economics depend on information that is rarely consolidated.
See which work is actually profitable, not just which is busy.
Financial Services
Regulatory reporting demands increase faster than internal capacity can absorb them.
Meet reporting demands without adding headcount.
CPA Firms
Seasonal demand and talent scarcity constrain capacity precisely when client work peaks.
Scalable support that protects the client relationship.
Thinking behind the approach
These pieces cover consolidation and record-keeping — the two things that most often determine how much preparation an audit turns out to need.
What Multi-Entity Consolidation Reveals About Performance
Consolidation is treated as a compliance exercise. Handled well, it is the clearest view of operating performance a business has.
Read InsightWhy Scattered Information Delays Executive Decisions
Most delay is not caused by missing data. It is caused by information that has never been reconciled into a single view.
Read Insight
Evidence you can examine
Our research states its methodology up front, so you can judge how it was produced before deciding whether to rely on it.
Regulatory Intelligence
Regulatory change reaches many organisations late. This report examines regulatory intelligence as a governance capability that turns regulatory information into knowledge leadership can plan against.
View ResearchCFO Priorities
Financial control is the foundation of the CFO role rather than the whole of it. This report examines the areas that require sustained financial leadership attention alongside reporting.
View Research
Let's Talk Through It.
Speak with an advisor about the reporting, compliance or capacity questions your business is working through.