Audits – Preparing for Year-End Review

This section provides a practical and strategic guide to preparing for client audits. It covers ACNC audit thresholds, the monthly hard-close process, preparation of audit-ready financials, structuring audit packs, using Xero to build audited financial statements, and managing communications with auditors. The goal is to reduce audit stress by maintaining clean accounts year-round and producing well-organised audit packs that minimise follow-up queries.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Understand audit requirements under ACNC and which clients are subject to audit or review.

• Describe the importance of monthly hard closes in maintaining “audit-ready” financials.

• Create structured, complete audit packs in SharePoint with reconciliations and substantiation.

• Use Xero to draft audited financial statements, ensuring consistency with prior year reports.

• Assist with responding to auditor queries and finalising financials before key audit deadlines.

• Identify the key documents required for each balance sheet account and save them appropriately.

• Leverage AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT) to automate the audit pack building process where appropriate.