เตรียมบริษัทให้พร้อมก่อนตรวจสอบบัญชีHow to Prepare for a Statutory Audit in Thailand

How smoothly an audit runs does not depend on the auditor alone. The state of your accounts, your documents and your internal team has a direct effect. This article sets out what you should have ready, together with a checklist you can start using immediately.

Why preparation matters

An auditor has to verify that the figures in the financial statements are supported by evidence. When the trial balance, the sub-ledger reports and the underlying documents agree with one another, the auditor can move on to detailed testing without waiting through repeated rounds of corrections.

The goal is not to make the financial statements "look good". It is to make the information complete, traceable back to source, and capable of being explained for significant items — which reduces follow-up questions and repeated document requests.

Documents to prepare, by area

The documents you actually need depend on your business, but the main items to have ready are these.

If you have loans, cross-border transactions, or transactions with companies in your group, also prepare the contracts, calculation schedules and evidence of approval.

What to do before your period end

Plan the inventory count: fix the date, the locations, the people responsible, and how goods movements will be controlled while counting is in progress. Separate the company's own goods from items belonging to others, identify damaged or hard-to-sell stock, and notify your auditor in advance so they can plan their observation of the inventory count.

Prepare a bank reconciliation for every account. Check outstanding cheques, deposits in transit, bank charges, and any items the company has not yet recorded. Long-outstanding items need to be investigated — they should not simply be carried forward without an explanation.

Put together the list of banks, customers and suppliers, along with contact details, for audit confirmations, and sign the authorisations where these are needed. The auditor should control the sending and receipt of the confirmations.

Review the transactions either side of the period end so that revenue, cost of sales and expenses fall in the correct period (cut-off). Look at delivery dates, service dates and contract terms; the tax invoice date alone is not a sufficient basis.

Common problems and how to avoid them

• Sub-ledger reports do not agree with the accounts: reconcile receivables, payables, inventory, fixed assets and tax before you hand over the data.
• Documents cannot be located: keep them in separate files, name files systematically, and assign someone to be responsible.
• Related-party transactions with no supporting evidence: prepare contracts, approval documents and the details of how amounts were calculated.
• Accounts amended during the audit: set a date on which the data is closed, and tell the auditor whenever there are audit adjustments.
• No one available to answer questions directly: name an owner for each area and appoint a main coordinator.

In practice, we suggest starting roughly one to two months before your period end. If you have multiple branches, large inventory volumes, several systems, or cross-border transactions, start earlier than that.

Checklist before the audit begins

• Trial balance and sub-ledger reports agree and have been reviewed
• Inventory count completed and count evidence retained in full
• Every bank account reconciled and outstanding items explained
• Information ready for bank, customer and supplier confirmations
• Transactions either side of the period end reviewed
• Tax returns, contracts and documents for significant transactions complete
• Transactions with related individuals or companies supported by evidence
• People responsible and a coordinator appointed

If you are not sure what else you need to prepare, ask your auditor for their document request list and agree the submission dates in advance, so that your preparation fits your business and the actual audit plan.