Final Meeting with the Auditors

Parsley Sage Rosemary & Ginsburg llp

“always a reasonable result for a reasonable fee, always”

MEMORANDUM

To: CC:	Management Committee Accounting Department
From:	Mike Marget
Date:	April 30, 2012
Re:	The Auditors are Coming!  -- Final Meeting with the Auditors

We have scheduled the Final Meeting with the Auditors and Management Committee to occur in conjunction with the May Management Committee Meeting on May 21^st. 

As you know, Beane & Beane, CPAs completed their examination of the 2011 financial statement at the end of March.  Copies of the final financial statements, together with the auditor’s report, have been circulated to Big Bucks Bank, Monopoly Holdings (our landlord) and to Easy Credit Leasing – all in accordance with our agreements with those outside parties.  Copies also have been posted on the “partners only” section of the firm’s Intranet for partners who enjoy reading financial footnotes.

On May 21^st, the first agenda item will be the meeting with one of the partners from Beane & Beane.  He will discuss the following:

·        How his firm went about examining our financial statements for 2011, the type of tests and analysis performed and comment upon the cooperation received from me and other members of the Accounting Department.    

·        The report issued by his firm and its scope and limitations.

·        Suggestions for improvement in our operations in their Auditor’s Recommendations Letter.

As in prior years, I will ask senior members of the Accounting Department, especially those who worked to prepare the Audit Binder and responded to requests from the auditors during the course of the examination, to be present from the Beane & Beane presentation. 

When the presentation is concluded, the Accounting Department personnel and I will leave the conference room so the Management Committee can meet in executive session with the Beane & Beane partner without any of us present.  This is an opportunity for the Management Committee to ask candid and probing questions concerning our financial stewardship of the firm’s books and records. 

Even after 25 years of doing this job, this executive session is always the most anxious 30 minutes of my year.  Even though nearly five months will have passed since the end of 2011, it is not until the auditor emerges from the executive session with the Management Committee that we can finally declare fiscal year 2011 officially closed.  A week later, we start preparing, slowly at first, to repeat the whole process for 2012.

[I keep hoping one day, you will call me back to the conference room, after Beane & Beane departs, and greet me with a standing ovation for a job well done.  It could happen.]