An audit is a process of an independent assessment of the activities of an enterprise, an individual entrepreneur.

Its purpose is to determine the reliability of reporting (accounting and financial).

The concept of "audit" is much broader than just a control function and revision.

Auditors, in addition to verification work, perform tasks to optimize the tax and economic activities of the enterprise, focused on increasing profits and more rational use of funds.

Internal audit and its types

Audit on an ongoing basis may exist within the enterprise.

This is an internal audit, which is exclusively voluntary, that is, it is carried out at the initiative of the economic entity itself (founder, owner, director).

In turn, it is divided into mandatory and initiative audit (carried out in organizations of any form of ownership by order of the management - the owner, founders).

External auditors or audit companies are invited to conduct the audit

The main stages, tasks and objectives of the audit are formulated by the initiator of the audit and are reflected in the audit contract for the provision of services.

Most often, initiative audit is carried out:

1. to obtain an expert opinion on the conduct of tax and accounting at the enterprise;
2. if the owner (founder) doubts the competence of the chief accountant;
3. during the reporting period, there were changes in the legislation governing the activities of enterprises,
4. the audit is ordered by the bank before lending to the enterprise.

Enterprises subject to mandatory audit

In our country, the procedure

statutory audit

This legislative act prescribes a number of enterprises that are subject to mandatory audit. These include:

1. Companies having the organizational and legal form of JSC;
2. Organizations issuing securities that are traded on stock exchanges, or carrying out actions with securities;
3. Banks, credit institutions;
4. insurance and clearing companies;
5. off-budget funds (except for state ones);
6. stock, commodity and currency exchanges;
7. non-state pension fund, joint-stock fund, mutual investment funds;
8. firms operating in the securities market professionally;
9. Enterprises (with the exception of state authorities, agricultural cooperatives, local governments, unitary enterprises) that have revenue from activities (sale of goods, services, performance of work) exceeding 400 million rubles, or the amount of balance sheet assets at the end of the reporting period - 60 million rubles;
10. Organizations publishing their reports in the media;
11. Other cases.

In the above organizations, a mandatory audit is carried out every year

For its implementation, qualified private auditors and audit organizations with a certificate are involved.

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Organizations with at least 25% state participation in their authorized capital are subject to mandatory audit.

The audit organization for the audit is selected on a competitive basis.

The rules and regulations of the competition are established by the Government of the Russian Federation.

Criteria for statutory audit

Conducting a statutory audit

imposes certain obligations on the audit organization - the criteria for a mandatory audit.

These include:

1. When performing a mandatory audit, the audit is carried out in full:

• analysis of all business activities of the organization,
• all its sectors, property, liabilities,
• inventories of goods and materials,
• analysis of settlements with the budget and funds, founders,
• assets and liabilities of the balance sheet, their interpretation,
• representative enterprises, branches;

2. The auditor's conclusions must be unambiguous, and the reliability of the information provided - either confirmed or not;

3. During a mandatory audit, auditors must comply with all audit standards (rules) that determine the actions of the auditor in a particular situation.

Subjects of statutory audit in case of evasion from mandatory audit or obstruction of its conduct are subject to penalties by a court decision.

Recovery can be in the form of a fine:

• from an economic entity - 100–500 times the minimum wage,
• from the head - 50-100 times.

The collected amounts are directed to the revenues of the Federal budget.

Activities of audit companies

An audit company is a commercial organization whose purpose is to make a profit from the provision of accounting, legal, auditing services,

How much will it cost a company not to conduct a statutory audit? In this article, we will consider possible sanctions from the regulatory authorities of the company for the lack of an audit report. The consequences of not conducting an audit (apart from fines for the absence of an audit report) may affect the financial and economic activities of the company.

Let's analyze which regulatory authorities can fine a company for the lack of an audit report, which, in fact, means a failure to conduct a mandatory audit.

Tax fines

Responsibility that can be imputed by the tax authority for failure to present documents within the prescribed period is provided for in clause 1 of article 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation.

Thus, the price of non-submission to the tax authorities of documents and (or) other information provided for by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and other acts of legislation on taxes and fees is 200 rubles for each document not submitted (clause 1, article 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

According to Art. 6 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ “On Auditing Activities” (hereinafter referred to as Law No. 307-FZ), an audit report is an official document intended for users of the accounting (financial) statements of audited entities, containing opinion of an audit organization, an individual auditor on the reliability of the accounting (financial) statements of the audited entity in the prescribed form.

From the foregoing, it follows that the audit report is not a document that serves as the basis for the calculation and payment (withholding and transfer) of taxes, fees, as well as a document confirming the correct calculation and timeliness of payment (withholding and transfer) of taxes, fees, and, therefore, the tax authority has no reason to impose a fine under paragraph 1 of Article 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation for its failure to provide. This position is also shared by arbitration courts (decree of the Eleventh Arbitration Court of Appeal dated March 24, 2016 No. A55-24924 / 2015).

In addition, the audit report is no longer included in the annual accounting (financial) statements (clause 1, article 14 of the Law of December 6, 2011 No. 402-FZ “On Accounting”) submitted to the tax authorities, and therefore the tax authorities is not entitled to fine the company (letters of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation for Moscow dated March 31, 2014 No. 13-11 / 030545, dated January 20, 2014 No. 16-15 / 003855, Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation dated January 30, 2013 No. 03-02 -07/1/1724).

Important!

On April 10, 2016, amendments to Article 15.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses came into force, which provide for penalties for gross violation of accounting and reporting rules, including for the absence of an audit report on accounting (financial) statements (if the audit accounting (financial) reporting is mandatory).

The amount of fines provided for by the updated version of Article 15.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is:

from 5 thousand rubles to 10 thousand rubles (for officials);

in case of repeated violation - up to 20 thousand rubles (for officials) or disqualification of an official for a period of 1 to 2 years.

At the same time, the statute of limitations for bringing to administrative responsibility is 2 years from the date of the commission of such an offense.

Who can initiate the imposition of such a fine?

Protocols on administrative offenses are authorized to draw up officials:

tax authorities (clause 5 clause 2 article 28.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses);

executive authorities exercising the functions of control and supervision in the financial and budgetary sphere (clause 11, clause 2, article 28.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses);

Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and control and accounting bodies of the subjects of the Russian Federation (clause 3, clause 5, article 28.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).

Fines from ROSSTAT

For failure to submit an audit report to the set of financial statements submitted to Rosstat (in the event of a mandatory audit), an organization and its official may face an administrative fine (Article 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation):

• from 300 to 500 rubles (for officials);
• from 3 thousand to 5 thousand rubles (for legal entities).

At the same time, the imposition of a fine does not relieve the organization from the obligation to submit an audit report to the statistical authorities (clause 4, article 4.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).

Fines from the Bank of Russia

The most serious sanctions can be imposed by the Bank of Russia.

A public joint-stock company is obliged to disclose its annual report and annual accounting (financial) statements (Article 92 of the Federal Law of December 26, 1995 No. 208-FZ “On Joint-Stock Companies”, hereinafter referred to as Law No. 208-FZ).

Requirements for the content of the annual report of joint-stock companies are established in the Regulations on the disclosure of information by issuers of issuance securities, approved. Bank of the Russian Federation dated December 30, 2014 No. 454-P (hereinafter referred to as the Regulation).

The annual accounting (financial) statements of a JSC subject to statutory audit are disclosed by publishing its text on a page on the Internet no later than three days from the date of drawing up an audit report expressing in the prescribed form the opinion of an audit organization on its reliability (clause 71.4 of the Regulations). Recall that a mandatory audit is carried out in cases where the company has the organizational and legal form of a joint-stock company (clause 1, clause 1, article 5 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ “On Auditing”).

Lack of information subject to disclosure in accordance with these Regulations, without sufficient grounds, is the basis for holding the issuer liable, as well as for establishing restrictions on the circulation of securities in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation (clause 2.13 of the Regulations).

Administrative responsibility for this violation is provided for in paragraph 2 of Art. 15.19 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.

So, disclosure of information is not in full (accounting statements must be disclosed together with the auditor's report), and (or) false information, and (or) misleading information entails the imposition of an administrative fine:

• from 30 thousand rubles to 50 thousand rubles (for officials) or their disqualification for a period of 1 to 2 years;
• from 700 thousand rubles to 1 million rubles (for legal entities).

Important!

In the presence of exceptional circumstances related to the nature of the committed administrative offense and its consequences, the amount of the minimum fine may be reduced by the court. For example, for not posting an audit report on a website in the information and telecommunications network "Internet", the court reduced the fine to 350 thousand rubles (decisions of the Arbitration Court of the North-Western District of February 10, 2016 No. A56-30455 / 2015, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of February 25 .2014 No. 4-P).

The economic activity of the organization requires increased attention to assets, resources and cash flow. An audit is used to identify errors. What is a mandatory audit for an LLC in 2020?

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For legal entities in Russia, the most popular organizational and legal form is a limited liability company. Most small and medium businesses are registered as LLCs.

This assumes compliance with certain requirements, one of which is the conduct of audits. How is a statutory audit carried out for an LLC in 2020?

What you need to know

In addition, this way you can make sure that the reporting is correct and prevent the occurrence of unexpected fines and increased taxes.

Audits are carried out by independent audit firms. A mandatory requirement for them is the availability of audit activities.

Auditor services are provided on a fee basis. But these costs are more than reasonable, since some errors in reporting can lead to very serious losses.

What is its role?

Auditing involves not only checking accounting activities. Based on the results of the audit, it is possible to analyze the interaction between various departments and services and accounting.

Based on the audit findings, it is possible to assess the efficiency of the enterprise as a whole, identify the main risks and eliminate significant flaws in production activities.

A positive audit opinion becomes:

The guarantor of the organization's reliability as a commercial partner and compliance with legal regulations	For contractors
Confirmation of the fact of reliability of profit and its formation in accordance with accounting standards	For owners
Evidence of the effectiveness of activities, the reliability of the internal control system, the correct formation of assets and liabilities	For the executive body
Evidence of compliance with the Labor Code	For staff
An indication of a high degree of reliability of tax and accounting records, a low probability of detecting errors and additional taxes	For the tax authority

An auditor's report on the reliability of reporting for a certain period is issued based on the results of a mandatory audit.

Also, the management is presented with an audit report indicating the detected violations or misrepresentations of accounting and recommendations for their correction.

An organization subject to mandatory audit submits an audit report to Rosstat along with annual financial statements.

The conclusion is submitted within ten days from the date of completion of the audit, but no later than the thirty-first of December of the year following the reporting year.

Legal regulation

For a new organization, the first reporting year is the time interval:

Checked objects

An audit is the collection of audit evidence, its evaluation and analysis. In this case, the list of objects to be checked depends on the verification method used.

An audit may be:

Solid	All primary accounting documents, registers of synthetic and analytical accounting, financial statements are carefully studied
Selective	Accounting documents are checked selectively by random selection of documents, with a choice of documents by numbering at regular intervals or in combination
Combined	Combines methods of continuous and spot checks. Small transactions are checked by a continuous method, and transactions with a large volume - selectively
Documentary	Limited to verification of primary and consolidated accounting records and statements. It is carried out without visiting the audited object and without conducting an inventory
Actual	Occurs with a visit to the object being checked

Documentary and actual checks can be carried out by continuous, selective or combined methods.

Order of conduct

The audit can be divided into three main stages:

Planning and organization	At this stage, the audit is discussed with the client. There is an acquaintance with the financial and economic activities of the organization. The factors influencing the activity of the subject are studied. The internal control system is assessed. A general plan and audit program is drawn up and agreed upon. An audit letter is being prepared. Signing an inspection contract
Collection of audit evidence	Controls are being tested. Substantive checks are being carried out
Completion of the check	Audit evidence is summarized and analyzed. The results of the audit are reported to the management of the audited LLC. An audit report is being drawn up

Calculation of fines

If you do not conduct a mandatory audit, then the LLC faces a fine. This is also provided for in clause 11 of article 15.23.1.

According to these standards, they can be fined in the amount of twenty to thirty thousand rubles or disqualified for up to one year.

As for legal entities, for such a violation they face a fine of five hundred to seven hundred thousand rubles.

If the audit is carried out, but the conclusion is not provided to Rosstat or submitted late, an administrative fine is provided for, determined.

An official is fined from ten to twenty thousand rubles, and an organization - from twenty to seventy thousand rubles.

For a repeated violation, fines increase - thirty to fifty thousand rubles and one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand rubles, respectively. It is not necessary to submit an audit report to the tax office, since it is not included in the financial statements.

But if the audited financial statements of the LLC are published, then the auditor's report must also be published.

Is it done when re-registering a JSC into an LLC

Notes that the transformation of a legal entity is considered a reorganization.

In accordance with the law on state registration of legal entities, the reorganization is considered completed after the official registration of a new legal entity, while the transformed legal entity is considered to have completed its activities.

Thus, when a JSC is re-registered as an LLC, it turns out that one organization has ceased its activities, and the other has become a newly created legal entity.

Is an LLC subject to mandatory audit in this case? On September 1, 2014, amendments to the civil law came into force. Most of them concern legal entities.

It follows that although the reorganization creates an LLC, which in the first year of its activity is not subject to audit, an audit is necessary for a joint-stock company.

In addition, there is such a thing as a special purpose audit. This is carried out at or organizations.

Its purpose is to confirm the correctness of reporting, the value of assets and liabilities. In the process of a special audit, the compliance with the legislative norms of constituent documents is audited.

At the end of the audit, an audit report is prepared with a positive or negative result.

Mandatory audit allows you to make "transparent" financial documentation. This, in turn, speaks of the honesty and openness of the business.

The objective opinion of the auditor allows you to identify many risks and eliminate significant errors. Therefore, in recent years, many organizations that are not subject to mandatory audit, order an initiative audit.

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In connection with the entry into force of the Law of May 5, 2014 No. 99-FZ, all joint-stock companies, both public and non-public, are subject to mandatory audit. This means that companies that were registered before September 1, 2014 and have the organizational and legal form of a CJSC must also conduct a mandatory audit. Amendments to the civil legislation introduced by the Law of May 5, 2014 No. 99-FZ are effective from September 1, 2014. To a certain extent, they will affect the work of accounting.

About the cases in which a company must undergo an audit without fail, it is stated in the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ “On Auditing”. Therefore, the law is subject to mandatory audit, in particular:

• open joint stock companies;
• firms that received revenue in the previous year (line 2110 of the Statement of Financial Results) over 400,000,000 rubles (excluding VAT, excises and export duties);
• firms whose balance sheet assets at the end of the previous year exceed 60,000,000 rubles;
• banks, insurance companies and associations of insurers, exchanges.

A mandatory audit is carried out if at least one of the listed grounds is met.

All legal entities are divided into two types - corporate (corporations) and unitary (Article 65.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

Unitary legal entities are organizations whose founders are not their participants (state and municipal unitary enterprises, religious organizations).

Corporate - these are organizations that include participants and executive bodies. These include, in particular, limited liability companies, joint-stock companies. Corporations may have two or more general directors who may act jointly or independently of each other (Clause 3, Article 65.3 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

All joint-stock companies are divided into public and non-public. Public - these are those that place shares on the securities market (clause 1 of article 66.3 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), non-public ones do not place their shares on the securities market; LLCs are classified as non-public organizations (Clause 2, Article 66.3 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The concepts of open and closed joint-stock companies are no longer in the Civil Code, and after September 1, 2014, it is no longer possible to create a CJSC or OJSC, and all existing ones are equated to JSCs. The affiliation of the company to the public should be reflected in its charter (and, accordingly, in the name) and in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

The organization must be created on the basis of the decision of the founder (founders) on the establishment of a legal entity. The general procedure for making such a decision is given in Article 50.1 of the Civil Code (there was no single procedure before). The decision must contain the following information: on the establishment of a legal entity, on the approval of the charter, on the procedure, amount, methods and terms for the formation of property, on the election (appointment) of its bodies. If there are two or more founders, then the decision must be taken unanimously.

On a note

The only constituent document of legal entities is the charter () (previously there could be a charter or a memorandum of association, or both documents at the same time).

Information about representative offices and branches should be contained in the constituent documents of the organization (clause 6, article 5 of the Law of December 26, 1995 No. 208-FZ “On Joint Stock Companies”, clause 5 of article 5 of the Law of February 8, 1998 No. 14 -FZ "On Limited Liability Companies"). Now this information must be reported to the registration authorities for inclusion in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities ().

A mandatory audit of accounting (financial) statements has been introduced for all joint-stock companies (clause 5, article 67.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

It is important that when transferring non-monetary contributions to the authorized capital of a JSC or LLC, it is required to involve an independent appraiser and have a report on the value of the contribution, regardless of its value. Participants are not entitled to evaluate non-monetary contributions more than their estimated price (clause 2, article 66.2 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

Postal correspondence sent to the address of the company specified in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities is considered received by the legal entity, even if it is not located at the specified address ().

An organization that, over the past 12 months, has not submitted reporting documents stipulated by the legislation on taxes and fees, and has not carried out operations on at least one bank account (inactive), is considered to have actually ceased operations and is excluded from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (and, as a result, is liquidated) (Clause 2, Article 64.2 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). For your information: Article 53.1 establishes responsibility for persons who are authorized to act on behalf of the organization and its collegiate bodies.

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The regulation of the activities of Russian business is increasingly approaching, which is associated with both the influx of foreign investment and the entry of Russian companies into foreign capital markets.

For effective interaction with Russian and foreign partners in Russia for 2020 international auditing standards were introduced which seriously influenced the established practice of conducting inspections.

The audit requirements for limited liability companies do not apply to all companies, but only to legal entities that meet certain criteria. This is due to the fact that most LLCs belonging to small and medium-sized businesses have small financial turnover, do not bring their shares or bonds to the securities market by publishing an emission prospectus, do not attract money from individuals. Therefore, the need for additional verification of the reliability of their reporting does not arise.

Main criteria for verification

Mandatory audits must be carried out by companies whose activities affect the interests of many third parties or have sufficiently high financial performance. These criteria are established by the legislation on auditing activities and sometimes change in terms of increasing the thresholds for revenue and.

The requirements for an LLC are divided into two groups: by types of activity and other similar characteristics and by financial indicators. According to these features, it is possible to single out LLCs that are subjects of mandatory audit. Joint-stock companies in the form of PJSC, whose shares are distributed by public subscription, are checked in any case, regardless of compliance with other criteria.

Subjects

The law establishes the following groups of limited liability companies for which the audit of annual accounts is mandatory:

1. By type of activity- audits are required to be carried out by banks, insurance companies, pension funds, holding companies that prepare and publish consolidated financial statements for the holding, companies whose bonds are traded on the organized securities market.
2. According to financial indicators these requirements apply to enterprises with revenue exceeding 400 million rubles, as well as if the balance sheet asset currency exceeds 60 million rubles.

If a limited liability company falls under these criteria, the requirements for an audit of the annual financial statements become mandatory for it. Compared to last year, nothing has changed in these criteria, no new subjects or requirements have appeared.

According to the new goals and objectives of the statutory audit in 2020, not only will the standard verification of the reliability of financial statements and the identification of errors that occur during accounting, but also business analysis. The first two tasks remain in full and are somewhat expanded, so the responsibility for checking the work of internal ones also falls on the shoulders of external auditors.

The task of business analysis is to identify risks, factors that cause obstacles to the development of the company's activities, and develop recommendations for such a change in financial and economic activities that will help eliminate these risks.

Despite the fact that the conclusion from this year is subject to mandatory publication, its business part must be completed most correctly and balanced, one should not allow an incorrect interpretation of certain facts of economic life.

Legislation

In addition to the basic laws, a mandatory audit is regulated according to the norms by the Order of the Ministry of Finance No. 192n, issued on October 24, 2016. They put into effect 30 International Auditing Standards.

Also, a little later, Order No. 203n was adopted, which approved 18 more standards. Among the most significant changes:

• introduction of the principles of a phased audit;
• introduction of the concept of audit evidence;
• changing the form of the conclusion, instead of a standard report, an extended document is proposed with an analysis of the organization's activities, business risks and other issues;
• preparation of a modified opinion;
• an auditor's report made for organizations that require a statutory audit should be published.

The responsibility of audit organizations with the introduction of new standards has increased, and competition will also increase, since the publication of reports will enable everyone to get acquainted with the quality of work of auditors before concluding contracts.

had a significant impact on the work of auditors. repeal of audit secrecy provisions. According to it, the employees of audit companies are required to report to the financial monitoring authorities about the so-called "strange" transactions of clients.

Changes in cost

The new standards have significantly increased the labor intensity of the work of specialists checking accounts. Seriously changed requirements, the need to fill in additional tables increased the labor costs of specialists by 30-40% , the price of these services should have increased proportionally.

In any case, the cost of the auditor's services must be approved by the company's participants, therefore, when the issue of a mandatory audit is brought to the meeting of participants, the price must be determined.

Checking procedure

Auditing and its essence have not undergone any changes. As a standard, the correctness of accounting is checked on the basis of documents for a certain sample; a complete audit is not carried out. But the amount of information provided has increased significantly, and hence the burden on the accountant.

In addition, the need for business analysis forces the management of the enterprise to take part in the audit, which will require comments on certain risks in the activity. The auditors themselves are required by the standards to inform management of shortcomings in the work of internal audit systems.

The auditor must be determined at the meeting of the participants. He starts checking as soon as the reports are ready, but before they are submitted. Thus, the main work for the auditor will have for March- for accounting purposes, for June- for the tax office.

Given the significant complication of the requirements, it is better not to take risks and start checking as early as possible, there is a high risk of not having time to prepare a report, which can lead to various sanctions.

In addition, a phased audit will enable accountants and financiers to use auditors' advice on controversial issues of tax legislation and accounting throughout the year.

The result of the check will be drawing up a conclusion, which is seriously different from the previously accepted forms. The collection of recommended forms of conclusions is approved by the Ministry of Finance, it contains recommendations for ordinary and special conclusions, which are formed based on the results of the audit of consolidated financial statements.

Can an organization be penalized for not conducting a statutory audit? Yes, but sanctions will not follow directly. First of all, she will be denied acceptance of the annual financial statements. Such failure hello to the imposition of administrative responsibility on her.

The fact of a gross violation of the rules for maintaining accounting records may also be established, which will lead to an administrative fine in the amount of up to 20000 rubles. Small fines may be imposed for failure to provide an opinion along with reporting and statistics authorities.

Compared to previous periods, almost nothing has changed, except for the requirements to include data on the mandatory audit in the Unified State Register in accordance with Law 129-FZ and the requirements for mandatory publication of audit results.

Failure to comply with this requirement may be the basis for bringing to administrative responsibility, the head may be disqualified or fined up to 50000 rubles(Clause 6, 7, 8 Article 14.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).

Sanctions imposed on the auditors themselves have become tougher. For the unreliability of the conclusion, they may be subject to sanctions in accordance with the Code of Administrative Offenses, and it is also planned to introduce criminal liability if the preparation of a low-quality report led to significant losses. The law on criminal liability is still under consideration.

Changes in the procedure for conducting an audit, on the one hand, are positive, increasing the transparency of enterprises and the confidence of investors and partners in them, on the other hand, disclosure of additional information that has ceased to be a tax secret may lead to an increase in the cost of bank loans due to the publicity of some risks. But in the end analysis of documentation on the new rules should benefit the business.

Why is an audit needed? Details are in this video.