Audit of settlement transactions: important practical aspects

The activity of any enterprise must 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 multiple increases 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 what the company can pay for. 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, whether it's 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 reality of the existence of the firm's obligations to someone, or the 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 carried out, the auditor can send a letter to the bank in which the deposit is kept, asking him to specify the amount on the deposit, the amount of interest payments and their frequency.

Further it is necessary to evaluate the correctness of the display in accounting documents of all aspects of settlement transactions. This is especially important in the case when objects that are not owned by the company take part 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 correctly 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, therefore, it is not necessary to impose depreciation on the objects taken on lease. In the event of a violation of this rule, corrective operations need to be carried out, however, this is fraught with subsequent questions from the tax and other inspection bodies.

Audit of settlement transactions usually takes quite a long time compared to other types of inspections. 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 for other types of verification, for example, concerning stocks or fixed assets. This is explained by the fact that 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 operations is considered one 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 its lack of problems with inspection bodies in future periods.