Financial audits. The very term brings to mind, independent auditors fervently poring over tonnes of business’ financial statements and other relevant documents. Such investigations into the financial integrity of a business can make or break the company. To stay compliant, companies need to speed up and streamline their financial audit processes. 

At the same time, in the age of social distancing, auditors may not always be able to visit the client’s location to secure audit ‘evidence’. Nor physically sign-off on high-quality audit reports and certificates. 

To help on both counts, our mantra at Signeasy is to enable remote and seamless paperwork.  

Whether you are an auditor or own a company that needs to prepare for an audit, this (2-min read) article is sure to come in handy.

Top documents that are ‘must-sign’ for auditors 

You must have noticed two critical documents – auditor reports and commentaries – are signed by auditors, at the end of each probe. 

Here are some of the other documents that can be signed and shared remotely, using eSignatures, during a financial audit:

• Net-worth certificates
• Valuation report
• Tax audit report
• Statutory audit report
• Internal audit report
• XBRL reports
• Projected reports
• Financial statements certification
• Cash flow statements certification

Not only will digitizing the financial audit paperwork fast-track the processing, but it will also help make your business more eco-friendly (no more paper!). To see Signeasy’s electronic signing capabilities in action, you could check out our free trial.

9 documents you need to prepare for a financial audit

For each audit, your company will need to offer concrete proof of your finances being squeaky clean. Don’t want to call the auditors to your office to furbish all these files, during the pandemic? But, still, want to ensure that all these documents reach your auditor’s by the deadline? Consider subscribing to an eSignature solution.

Once you have a checklist of documents that are required to be shared, just shoot them out one-by-one with an ESIGN and eIDAS approved eSignature tool. 

• General ledger
• Trial balance
• Copies of loans, lease statements, and agreements
• Depreciation schedule
• Invoices
• Payroll reports
• Stock option details
• Merger agreements
• Details of bank accounts and signatories

Here is why you absolutely need an eSignature solution for financial audits

1. Offers flexible and ‘forever’ storage: If you go by the SEC recommendation, audit firms need to retain financial records for at least 7 years from the date of audit (if not permanently). This presents the need for infinite storage space. Therefore the only way forward is using an eSignature solution like Signeasy, which integrates with cloud solutions. It automatically and securely (SSL Encryption) archives all documents on the cloud. And the storage space can be scaled up or down, to accommodate your changing needs. 
2. Improves audit productivity: With Signeasy’s automatic reminders, your staff won’t have to spend extra time and money to track the status of files anymore. You will also get updates on who has signed and who still has to. To further speed up the processing of the financial audit paperwork, Signeasy allows you to easily send files to your auditor in the file type ( PDF, Word, Excel, Pages, JPG, PNG, etc) they prefer to work with. 
3. Enables business continuity: It’s been more than a year of pandemic-led disruptions and social distancing. But, that cannot mean that you pause the audits. In the spirit of battling the challenges of remote and contactless working, you should adopt a built-for-mobile eSignature solution. This will allow your company to share all necessary audit documents electronically — from anywhere, and at any time — even when offline. 
4. As legally binding as wet-ink signatures: All audit documents signed via Signeasy are 100% recognized in the court of law. Thanks to the detailed audit trail that is recorded by the platform, including signer email address, device IP, document fingerprint, and timestamp.

And whatever productivity tools you use during the audit, be it Evernote, Gmail, or Google Docs, Signeasy can integrate with it to make signing intuitive and seamless. Check out our featured partner integrations here.

Apart from financial audits, companies also undertake internal audit reporting for the likes of product, system, environmental sustainability, reputation, and growth. Whatever the document workflow, Signeasy can make it better and more convenient. To find out how it works, just drop us a note by clicking here, and we can arrange for a personalized, free Signeasy demo.