Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor's report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.
The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:
The Company is subject to many laws and regulations within the country it operates, where the consequences of non-compliance could have a material effect on amounts or disclosures in the financial statements. We identified the following laws and regulations as the most likely to have a material effect if non-compliance were to occur; financial reporting legislation, Companies Act legislation, tax legislation, anti-bribery legislation and employment law;
We communicated relevant laws and regulations and potential fraud risks to all engagement team members and remained alert to any indications of fraud or non-compliance with laws and regulations throughout the audit;
We understood how the Company is complying with those legal and regulatory frameworks by making enquiries of management. We corroborated our enquiries through our review of board minutes;
We assessed the susceptibility of the Company’s financial statements to material misstatement, including how fraud might occur by meeting with employees from different parts of the business to understand where it is considered there was susceptibility to fraud. We also considered performance targets and their propensity to influence efforts made by management to manage earnings. We considered the programs and controls that the Company has established to address risks identified, or that otherwise prevent, deter and detect fraud; and how senior management monitors those programs and controls. Where the risk was considered to be higher, we performed audit procedures to addressed identified fraud risk;
Our audit procedures involved: journal entry testing, with a focus on manual credits to revenue and journals indicating large or unusual transactions based on our understanding of the business and enquiries of management. In addition, we completed audit procedures to conclude on the compliance of disclosures in the annual report and accounts with applicable financial reporting requirements;
Assessment and appropriateness of the collective competence and capabilities of the engagement team included consideration of the engagement team’s:
- Knowledge of the industry in which the client operates
- Understanding the legal and regulatory requirements specific to the entity including:
- The provisions of the applicable legislation
- The regulators rules and related guidance, including guidance issued by relevant authorities that interprets those rules
- The provisions of the applicable legislation
- The regulators rules and related guidance, including guidance issued by relevant authorities that interprets those rules
The applicable statutory provisionsIn assessing the potential risks of material misstatement, we obtained an understanding of:
- The entity’s operations, including the nature of its revenue sources, products and services and of its objectives and strategies to understand classes of transactions, account balances, expected financial statement disclosures and business risks that may result in risks of material misstatement.
- The entity’s control environment, including policies and procedures implemented to comply with the entity’s relevant regulatory requirements, including the adequacy of procedures for authorisation of transactions, internal review procedures over the entity’s compliance with regulatory requirements and procedures to ensure that possible breaches of requirements are appropriately investigated and reported.
A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council's website www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor's report.