Reasons for Choosing an Opinion Audit Option with Ferrin & Company
1. Assurances, assurances, assurances
Only a licensed CPA firm in accordance with State Accountancy statutes is allowed to provide an opinion audits or other reports providing assurances to your credit union.
Under accountancy statutes, if not licensed accordingly, no assurances can be provided with respect to accounting standards or other representations.
2. Who is responsible
An audit is an intensive examination of the records of the credit union providing the highest level of assurances. An opinion is much more than an agreed-upon procedure supervisory committee audit. The auditor uses their knowledge of the credit union, and professional judgment to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence supporting the financial statements and relatd note disclosures.
Did you know that if your credit union has a non-opinion audit, the credit union supervisory committee retains the responsibility for determining the sufficiency of the procedures performed. (i.e. the supervisory committee is still in charge of determining if the audit procedures performed meet the requirements for a complete supervisory committee audit.) This means the supervisory committee ultimately responsible to regulatory examiners regarding the appropriateness of the audits performed.
With an opinion audit, we provide assurances that professional audit standards are met. Hence, your credit union will know that it has satisfied the annual regulatory audit requirement.
3. Technology Driven Audit
In today’s audit environment, an efficient audit requires state-of-the-art audit tools that allow the audit test work to be more thorough than ever. Some of the audit technology tools used by Ferrin & Company, LLC to accomplish this include:
Computer Assisted Audit Techniques – Through the use of ACL (Audit Command Language) for data extraction analysis and other computer audit programs, auditing through the computer using credit union provided data files allows a whole new level of detailed test work in less time than many other audit techniques.
Paperless Audit Approach – Auditors are required to maintain significant audit documentation in the performance of an audit. How your auditor maintains that documentation tells the story of audit time spent. Significant time can be wasted in paper-shuffling that should be used adding value to your audit and completing it in a timely fashion. We have done just that. We maintain nearly all audit documentation in data form. This saves time and allows to concentrate on performing your audit, not paperwork.
4. Up-to-Date Accounting/Auditing Professional Standards Compliant
Ferrin & Company maintains a library of not only credit union regulatory and accounting literature, but also libraries to support accounting and auditing standards pronouncements.
5. Continuing Professional Education
Our professionals attend national credit union auditing conferences and seminars each year. Additionally, training is also obtained through other key conferences such as the AICPA Practitioners Symposium and other select industry specific training opportunities.
6. Quality Review/System Peer Review
Ferrin & Company has regular peer reviews, as required by accounting/auditing professional standards. Each of these reviews have resulted in PASS ratings, the highest desired level of System Review Report. This demonstrates that Ferrin & Company makes a significant investment in quality control processes and makes every effort to assure compliance with technical audit and accounting standards.