Audit readiness

An audit proceeds smoothly when the supporting evidence already exists before the auditor requests it. These guides explain what auditors examine, what a typical request list contains, and how to prepare documentation continuously throughout the year instead of during a year-end scramble.

What is audit readiness?

Audit readiness is having the evidence for every balance in your books ready before an auditor asks for it. Each number on the request list is matched to a document that proves it, every account is reconciled, and the people who know the answers have time to give them. A ready company spends its audit answering questions rather than hunting for papers.

How do you assess audit readiness?

You assess it by checking each part of the books against the evidence an auditor will ask for, a few months before the fieldwork starts. A short checklist covers what matters most:
  • Every bank, receivable and payable account is reconciled each month, with its support filed.
  • Each balance on the request list has a document that proves it, saved where you can find it.
  • Every journal entry has a reason, a preparer and an approver on record.
  • Supplier invoices match what you agreed to pay, and customer invoices match what each contract allows.
  • Last year’s closing balances agree with this year’s opening balances.
  • One person owns the audit and can answer the auditor the same day.

How to Prepare for Your First Financial Audit

Your first audit doesn’t have to be a fire drill. What auditors will ask for, how to get it ready, and where first-timers lose the most time and money.
18 min read
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What Auditors Actually Look For

Auditors are not looking for perfection; they are looking for evidence. What they test, what the request list asks for, and how to have the answers ready.
8 min read
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What Happens in a Financial Statement Audit

From the engagement letter to the signed opinion: each step of a financial statement audit, the standard behind it and what the owner has to do.
15 min read
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Audit Sampling: How 40 Invoices Speak for a Year

How an auditor picks 40 of a year’s 2,300 supplier invoices, what they ask for behind each one, and how two errors are projected across the year in dollars.
8 min read
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Audit Trail: How the Auditor Follows One Bill

What an audit trail is, how the auditor walks one $18,400 bill through your system, and why a change with no name behind it costs more than its own amount.
4 min read
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Where Ressura checks this

Every Module

Each part of the books Ressura checks, from supplier invoices to payroll.

Get audit-ready before the scramble.

For the person who hands the books to the auditor.

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