Unlock the Power of eSignature Legitimateness for Nonprofit in Australia

How to eSign a document: e-signature legitimateness for Nonprofit in Australia

hello to all of you in the charity world I'm guessing you saw the word audit in this video's title and felt just a tiny shiver of trepidation the word audit does strike fear into a lot of hearts or if not outright fear at least a certain reluctance to engage but before we face that reluctance there's a few questions we may want to consider the first one is what do we mean when we say audit and then does that apply to our organization there are different kinds of audits for example various tax departments like the folks at the Charities directorate or the GST group might select an organization for an audit and that kind of audit someone from the government examines selected records and determines whether you've been complying with the particular regulations that they're responsible for for enforcing but the most common sort of audit is the audit of an organization's financial statements where the organization engages and pays an independent accounting firm to offer an opinion on whether those financial statements are fairly presented or not and that is what most people are referring to when they say audit and that's how we're using the term in this video this leads to the question does every charity every non-profit need to have this kind of audit done the answer is no many Charities and non-profits don't need to have their financial statements audited which may surprise you but before you appoint an accounting firm to do an audit it's important to be clear on whether it's mandatory or if it's being done in the spirit of best financial practices or even if it might be replaced by a different level of Engagement than an audit so in what circumstances is an audit mandatory I bet you're excited by now to find out it might not be but it might the first thing to consider is under What legislation your organization was created the societies act the Alberta companies Act and the Canada non-profit corporations all act all have different audit requirements so the first place to look is in your incorporating legislation how does it use the word audit and does it have a definition if you're incorporating legislation doesn't mandate an audit the next document to look at is your bylaws even if the legislation might provide Alternatives the bylaws May specify an independent audit is required and if that's the case you likely have no choice well maybe both your legislation and bylaws are silent on whether you need an audit or not or silent on defining what's what they mean by an audit there are two more reasons why you might still require one a lot of funding agencies will make a financial statement audit of either the entire organization or at least the program they're funding a condition of the grant contract so even if there's not a legislative need for an audit there may be a contractual requirement the final reason one might engage an auditor even if legislation bylaws and contractual obligations don't exist is a board policy that's based on best financial practices what are best practices for your charity will be affected by your size where your Revenue comes from how many stakeholders are interested in reading the financial statements and how complex your financial affairs are if after considering all of these the board determines that an audit should proceed you will likely be interested in getting the best service from your auditor and for a reasonable fee you'll want the audit report to reflect what actually happened in the organization during the year this is where our seminar comes in knowing the auditor's expectations in advance and providing them with the information and documents they need in a timely and organized fashion will improve the experience for both the organized organization itself and the auditor our seminar will describe what the different roles of the auditor the board of directors management and the accounting staff are in the audit process I'm looking forward to seeing you in February to discuss in more detail about what the Charities management and accounting staff can do ahead of and during the audit to contribute to the smoothest possible process and timely completion of the audit see you then