Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected].
Member question: “Has anyone had success using their TMS for audit and confirmation of bank accounts? We are in the midst of our annual audit process. We have a number of accounts confirmed by Confirmation [a platform that’s part of Thomson Reuters] and the remaining have to be confirmed by treasury providing bank statements from bank portals.
- “We are attempting to argue with our auditor that the electronic banking statement files delivered to our TMS (and reported from the TMS) should be sufficient for this requirement. Does anyone else have this issue or leverage their TMS statements for their audit confirmations?”
Peer answer 1: “We globally import statements in various formats into our TMS. Completeness and accuracy is verified by a self-developed algorithm which is audited every year by external auditors by taking a sample of bank external bank statements to validate methodology.
- “As a result, no further external statements are needed for the management of accounts globally. Local statutory audits might require additional Confirmation or bank statement proof.”
Peer answer 2: “We use Confirmation as well, and for the banks where that’s not possible, we have to send a scanned wet-signed letter for the respective bank to disclose the balance. The (external) auditors won’t even accept any statements retrieved by us, irrespective of portal or TMS.
- “If you currently have to confirm all accounts, you could ask to only confirm those with balances of a certain size and above.”
NeuGroup Insights reached out to the questioner to ask if treasury had resolved the issue with its auditor. He said there has been no real outcome and that he expects to “have to go down the path” of getting the statements from bank portals. “It was good to hear from other peers that they are facing he same standards we are,” he wrote.
- He added: “I think the auditing standards would have to change for there to be any improvement in the process. Auditors would have to better understand how the data is coming into and presented in these internal treasury management systems. Currently, they are taking the most conservative approach possible in wanting the information directly from or sourced from the banking counterparty.”
