Non Audit Services

If it were only accountancy services that you were providing to the charity, then as long as you considered whether the engagement could put your independence at threat and put sufficient safeguards in place i.e. a seperate engagement partner as you mention above, there would be no problem.

However, you include 'attendence at trustees meetings and involvement in strategic issues' , this could result in a management threat where the auditors are taking decisions that are those of the management.  In this case you would need to conclude whether the charity had informed management or whether they were actually relying on you to make decisions.  If it were the latter then I doubt you could call yourselves independent and therefore should not carry out the audit.

I hope this helps.

Lisa

thank you Lisa, very useful. My conclusion is that they will be making the decisions, I will be giving my opinion and then the trustees will take the decisions. The separate audit partner obviously is an essential.

How small is 'smallish'?

ie Do they really need an audit?

If so they should look to appoint a trustee who can take responsibility for financial matters in the trustee meetings - and should also get a decent cheap accounts package.

If you are however prepared to take that role (as a trustee? - and I cannot see how you would not be, though some will advise that you can avoid responsibility if you word all your comments very carefully) then you will have to pair up with a local audit specialist (like us! or Lisa's lot to be fair) who will give you a no poaching agreement. I would strongly reccommend that course, especially if you do not regularly do charity audits.

Hi Mark, I see we posted at the same time.

Fair enough, if you think you can just advise, it will depend very much on the charity itself and the characters already on the board.

Maybe a candidate for cold review, we get a few looked at every year.