Audits for Not-for-profit organisations and Academy Trusts
Around 15% of our current portfolio is carefully selected Not-for-profit organisations and Academy Trusts with turnovers ranging between £4m - £14m+.
Highly experienced in charity audits, our senior team can both assist staff in compliance with The Charities SORP, the audit information gathering process, and provide valuable, cost-effective ongoing support and guidance to the senior leadership team and the board of trustees throughout the year.
What do you need?
Audited financial statements must be prepared in accordance with The Charities SORP (with additional reporting requirements for Academy Trusts as required by the Academies Accounts Direction).
Reporting deadlines vary with Companies House, the Charity Commission and the Department for Education (DfE). We ensure that Not-for-profit organisations meet these filing deadlines, through having the capacity and resources to respond accordingly.
Not-for-profit organisations and Academy Trusts must also ensure good value-for-money from their auditors through a tender process.
Byrd + Link are how an auditor should be – supportive, professional, open and honest. They’re not there to beat a stick. They're there to make sure you conform, to test, to challenge where they need to. Even as they’ve grown, the support and backing still feels like it did at the beginning. They're always there if we need them. We’ve been really impressed with them.
My background isn't in finance, and Byrd + Link have been very good at explaining the reasons why things have to be done a certain way. That's a testament to a really experienced and knowledgeable team. And they fully understand the way academies work.
How we can help
Ensuring annual continuity of an audit team is vitally important to build strong client relations. We know from our own experiences that other audit firms will use trainees, which as they develop will then be used on different audits so there is no continuity of staffing.
This requires the finance team to repeatedly spend time showing new audit staff where to find information and answering repeat or naïve questions. In contrast, it is highly probable that we will assign the same senior individuals each year. This not only saves time and effort; personal familiarity and professional collaboration creates an excellent working rapport, alleviating understandable anxiety and stress amongst your finance team.
We are able to draw on our experience and knowledge, to share best practice. Site visits typically take 2-3 days, with a full written report available soon after. We can present this report, alongside the financial statements, to the board of trustees directly providing trustees with reassurance regarding the financial statements, systems and controls.
We appointed Byrd + Link in 2023 to be our Statutory Auditors and were impressed with their efficient approach to audit which meant we could continue to focus on the day-to-day operations of the Charity.
The transition to Byrd + Link, as our new auditors, was smooth and we really felt that the team took the time to understand Campden Home Nursing CIO; its processes, systems, charitable aims and objectives. Through discussions with the finance team, management and Trustees, alongside presentation of the Financial Statements and Report to Trustees, we were reassured about our systems and controls, as well as compliance with the financial reporting framework, and that Byrd + Link would continue to support us with best practice. It was a pleasure working with the Byrd + Link team and we look forward to our 2024 audit.
