Our clients expect us to provide accurate, high quality, audit and assurance services. They stay clients because of the personal interaction with senior team members and our ability to speak their language.

The Hayes Knight difference is that we provide solutions, openly communicating our observations and conclusions with your management team.

Whether you represent a public company, corporation (either in Australia or globally), union, or not-for-profit, we can help you with a broad suite of audit & assurance services:

• Financial statement audits
• Due diligence and risk assessment
• Forensic accounting
• Audit of a specific element, account or items of a financial statement
• Agreed upon procedures
• Internal audit
• Internal systems reviews
• Audit of prospective financial information
• Business & trust account audits

Our global affiliations through Morison International also mean that we can manage and co-ordinate your audit requirements almost anywhere around the world.

Financial statement audit

Do it once and do it right

A financial statement audit is an opinion on whether your financial reports are prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with an applicable financial reporting framework. What varies from audit to audit is not what has to be done, but how it’s done, and this is where Hayes Knight Audit can make all the difference.

Our audit professionals are thinkers, not just form fillers. With:

• Efficient and modern audit processes
• Dependable and long term staff (yes, you will see them next year), and
• An ongoing discussion with our Audit Directors and senior managers

it’s clear why Hayes Knight Audit is one of our fastest growing service areas.

We take a constructive approach to our audits. Our planning process avoids any surprises or uncomfortable situations by managing issues upfront rather than during the audit. And, during your audit, our Directors and senior managers maintain an ongoing discussion with you about your audit work, its progress, issues and improvement opportunities.

Whether you represent a listed entity, private company, not-for-profit, or union, we can help.

Due diligence & risk assessment

Due diligence ensures that you are not exposed to or face any unnecessary risk and that everything that is represented is as it seems.

It’s often an essential service for:

• The purchase of a business;
• The purchase of an equity share;
• Shareholder disputes;
• Funding requirements or capital raising;
• Internal diagnostic/audit review; and
• Succession planning.
• Due diligence can be extensive or focussed on specific areas of concern.

If you are buying a business, due diligence is essential to eliminate mistakes and misunderstandings that will dilute your investment. It does this by:

• Confirming that the business is what it appears to be;
• Identifying potential “deal killer” defects and avoiding a bad business transaction;
• Gaining information that will be useful for valuing assets, defining representations and warranties, and negotiating price concessions;
• Verifying that the transaction complies with investment or acquisition criteria; and
• Examining historical and forecast financial information and operational procedures.

Hayes Knight’s experienced team can work with you to:

• Scope the assignment, ensuring key risks are adequately covered;
• Advise on the best way to restructure the transaction;
• Advise on tax implications that may arise, if any, and provide solutions; and
• Advise on any operational or financial implications, if any, going forward

Next steps

Talk to a Hayes Knight auditor near you. They will organise a time to have an initial conversation with you about your requirements. The scope of any due diligence work is the most important so everyone knows what is being covered. We will work through this with you to ensure that key risk areas are covered.