Accountants Trust Account Audit:
As accountants in public practice if you maintain a client account/trust account receiving monies on behalf of clients then there may be a requirement for you to get your trust accounts audited. Depending on when you opened the trust account your due date may be determined by calling your institute. The regulatory institutes predominantly are the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAA), the CPA and the Institute of Public Accountants.
The Accounting professional and ethical standards applicable pertaining the dealing with trust account/client monies is “APES 310: Dealing with client monies”.
A copy of this standard is available for download by clicking the below link:
APES 310: Dealing with client monies
https://www.apesb.org.au/uploads/standards/apesb_standards/13092014110922p6.pdf
A typical accountants’ trust account receives tax refunds on behalf of the client and the practice takes their professional fee out before disbursing the rest of the monies to the client. Since there is public’s money in a trust account, it needs supervision with the applicable standards.
The accountants’ trust account audit involves various facets in accordance with the APES 310. This includes auditing internal controls, audit of documentation, managing of the trust account, record keeping, dealing with disbursements, notification to clients and other standardized conditions.
At A One Accountants, we charge a fixed fee for the audit of accountants’ trust account and the fee is $499 per trust account. This fee is GST inclusive.
Please note this fee is not payable from the member’s or the accountants’ trust account and is instead a cost to the business.
For our clients who appoint us as their auditor, we provide free advisory services in case you may have any questions pertaining the maintaining and management of the trust account during the year.