Beatrez & Company CPAs

Accounting

 

Beatrez & Company CPAs offers an array of accounting services. Our firm maintains a system of quality control that is in compliance with professional standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Peer review is mandatory for accounting firms licensed in the State of Ohio that perform attest engagements (audits, reviews, compilations, and agreed-upon procedures). Our most recent peer review report is available. Our firm offers the following services:

Accounting and Bookkeeping

Financial Statement Preparation

Financial Statement Compilation

Financial Statement Review or Audit

Other Attest Services

Accounting System Design

Consulting

Accounting and Bookkeeping

This service is normally rendered on a monthly basis. Services are tailored to meet the needs of your business. Examples of accounting and bookkeeping services include:

• Bank reconciliation
• Payroll administration
• Accounts payable administration (can include check writing)
• Maintenance of fixed assets and depreciation records
• Preparation of general ledger adjusting entries
• Issuance of the trial balance

Financial Statement Preparation

Accountants may prepare clients’ financial statements and not be associated with those statements. Accountants are not required to issue a report on the clients’ financial statements. Rather, each page of the financial statements must contain a statement, or legend, that no assurance is provided on the financial statements. Accountants performing financial statement preparation engagements are also not required to consider whether they are independent of the client.

Financial statement preparation engagements are most useful when prepared for clients’ internal use.

Financial statement preparation engagements do not cost less than compilation engagements as the firm documentation requirements for both types of engagements are similar. The decision to engage the accountant to prepare financial statements or to compile the financial statements should be driven by the expectations of the users of the financial statements.

Financial Statement Compilation

A financial statement compilation is a set of financial statements that is the representation of management without the accountant expressing any assurance on the financial statements.

The accountant must adhere to American Institute of CPAs professional standards for compilation of financial statements. The professional standards include a requirement that the accountant has a general understanding of the business that the client is in, that the accountant read the financial statements and has determined that the math is correct and the appropriate disclosures required by generally accepted accounting principles are present or disclosure of the lack of that appropriate information. Compiled financial statements are valuable for owners and management in that they receive timely financial information that has been prepared by an accountant at a reasonable cost.

Note that third party users of financial statements, particularly banks, are familiar with compiled financial statements.

Financial Statement Review or Audit

A financial statement review is a process where the accountant performs procedures sufficient to provide "limited assurance" that financial statements are free from material misstatement. A financial statement review is substantially less in scope than a financial statement audit.

The accountant performs the following types of procedures in financial statement reviews and audits:

• Reperforms client-provided bank reconciliations
• Compares accounts receivable and accounts payable detail to ledger balances
• Reconciles various tax filings with the related financial statement assertions
• Makes extensive inquiries of owners, management, and staff
• Performs analytical review of certain financial statement line items and compares the results with expected results or industry norms
• Secures written representations from management and owners regarding financial statement assertions

Audits differ from reviews in that the accountant generally performs more extensive procedures in audits and additionally conducts independent verification of financial statement assertions so that s/he can provide a high level of assurance that the financial statements are fairly stated.

Financial statement reviews are an attractive option for clients who do not require audited financial statements. A financial statement review costs approximately one-third less than a financial statement audit.

Beatrez & Company CPAs currently does not perform financial statement audits. We have relationships with local accounting firms and can provide you with multiple referrals to accounting firms that provide quality audit services.

Other Attest Services (Agreed-upon Procedures)

Accountants also perform attest services that are not directly related to financial statements. A client may desire to engage an accountant to perform procedures that are mutually agreed upon by the client and accountant. Examples of other attest services that fall into this category are:

• Enter into an agreement with a creditor to perform specific procedures on accounts receivables of a client as opposed to performing a complete financial audit or review.
• Enter into an agreement with owners/directors of a company to document that certain internal control policies are being followed.
• Serve as a data collection agent for an election and certify the results.

Beatrez & Company CPAs has multiple years experience evaluating church internal control systems. A work program has been developed by our firm that documents the important compliance issues that generally concern church leadership. These matters relate to compliance with bylaws, internal policies, and tax remittances. This work program is especially attractive to small churches whose budgets do not justify full financial audits or reviews. An agreed-upon procedures engagement of this type in a small church costs about one-half of a financial statement review and about one-third of a financial statement audit.

Accounting System Design

Beatrez & Company CPAs has extensive experience designing and reengineering accounting systems with the result in mind of improving client productivity. Our firm has designed and installed QuickBooks, Sage 50, and Sage 100 electronic accounting systems for numerous clients. The accounting software that we recommend for you depends on various factors such as the size/complexity of your business, the preference of the software user, and an analysis and matching of the various software packages' strengths and weaknesses to your business needs.

Consulting

We off an array of various consulting services. Examples of consulting services we provide are:

• Determining the appropriate accounting treatment for complex or nonrecurring transactions.
• Assisting with assessments of compliance with IRS or other regulatory entities' requirements.
• Assisting with development of internal controls.
• Performing detailed analysis of groups of transactions, or on discrete parts of the client's business.

Our consulting services are performed in accordance with the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Statements of Standards for Consulting Services. Accordingly, that Standard requires professional competence by us, due professional care in our provision of services, adequate planning and supervision of staff assigned to the consulting engagement, and that sufficient relevant data is obtained to afford a reasonable basis for our conclusions or recommendations.