sample audit exempt accounts

Mandlebrot

You ask if a balance sheet has any value. Yes of course it has but not if its completely out of date which they invariably are.

If you decide to download the balance sheet of a new trading partner from the CRO, you might be very lucky with your timing to get a balance sheet just 10 months old but on average the "latest" balance sheet available will be 18 - 20 months. It helps but working with such old information is of limited value. In the current climate anything could have happened to that company in the intervening period.
 
Mandlebrot

You ask if a balance sheet has any value. Yes of course it has but not if its completely out of date which they invariably are.

If you decide to download the balance sheet of a new trading partner from the CRO, you might be very lucky with your timing to get a balance sheet just 10 months old but on average the "latest" balance sheet available will be 18 - 20 months. It helps but working with such old information is of limited value. In the current climate anything could have happened to that company in the intervening period.

OK, but I'm struggling to see what you think should be the situation, as an alternative to what presently exists?

You're looking at things purely from the commercial perspective, that if something is of no real commercial benefit then it shouldn't happen, but as we all know that's not the real world. Companies have to be regulated in some way, and being required to publicly file a certain amount of financial information annually is a means of doing that (in other jurisdictions as well as this one). The information has to be statutorily required, otherwise there can be no standardisation, no comparability etc...

In my job, I regularly look at the balance sheets (and notes) of companies, as filed to the CRO, and the fact that the information is historical is of no consequence to me (in fact for the job I do, it has to be historical!) - my concern is that the information is accurate, and agrees with (or reconciles to) other information. If it's a free for all where everyone is just filing what they feel like, without notes or explanation of anything, the information is useless.

So, I'm not saying what exists is perfect, but what's your alternative?
 
I have read somewhere, but now can't find it, that a note is required on the balance sheet of a company in negative equity. (small company)
Is it actually to be included on the balance sheet, or with the notes to accounts? Can anyone point me to an example, or the statute section?
Thanks
 
it would be useful for others, for a sample of an actual audit exempt return could be added to this post, to take the mystery out of it!
 
Back
Top