What is a Compliance Review?

In a business climate states’ are constantly trying to heighten efforts to get additional revenues, and in that particular scenario entities also find themselves facing sales and tax audits. This results in a deficiency assessment. The compliance review can also be known as a pre-audit tool as it can detect potential issues and corrects any material misstatements right before an audit.

A compliance review includes the following things,

• Review the recordkeeping and also the accounting methods.
• Review of the taxability issues that are related to the goods and services which are sold or purchased.
• Review of the sales tax return preparation procedure.
• Recommend few changes, if required to current processes.
• Estimation of the potential sales tax liability exposure which results from an audit.

 In a compliance audit, what will be reviewed will vary greatly depending upon the fact, what kind of organization is it that is, whether an organization is a private or public company, what kind of data is it equipped to handle and how does it transmit sensitive data, whether it transmits or stores important sensitive financial data.

 For example, SOX requirements mean that any particular electronic communication needs to be backed up and secured with a competent disaster recovery infrastructure. Healthcare providers particularly that store or transmit important e-health records, such as personal health information, are subject to HIPAA requirements.

As far as the financial services companies are concerned, that transmit credit card data are, on the other hand, subject to PCI DSS requirements. In each of these cases, the organization should be equipped enough to be able to demonstrate compliance with the help of an audit trail, which is often generated by data coming from event log management software.

By implementing the following basic tips it helps produce a compliance quality system as discussed below, this will ensure that your high standards are accordingly met and maintained:

1. Report the Quality Assurance

One way of maintaining compliance quality is sending the final report to a reviewer before its release.  While it may seem an obvious thing to do getting your report QA checked is your last resort of defence for all your audit reports.  This ensures the following things,

• The report is read again from a fresh perspective to check spelling and other glaring errors, which are easy to overlook when you edit your own work.
• The reviewer can also identify and discuss any contentious issues or statements with the auditor right before the report is released.

2. Peer Review

Another important step which you can implement is peer review.  This is one requirement which periodically has a report reviewed by a different member of the team.  The benefits of the peer review are as follows,

• The reviewer can pick up a new approach or response to a situation.
• There are chances of a potential discovery of an fresh interpretation of a regulation.
• The auditor can consider some of the insights that their colleagues may have about the similar issues, and offer practical solutions on how to improve the report greatly.

3. Board Reporting

Some audit reports, whether good or bad need board scrutiny. It then becomes essential that the board is kept posted about the activities of the compliance function with the help of routine reporting on audit activities and outcomes. The compliance function, and specifically the compliance monitoring, should be front and centre, particularly in today’s board-level oversight activities.  This has a positive impact as it ensures that results are communicated to the highest levels.
By implementing these simple and effective tips to your review process you will persistently be able to deliver a high quality standard of compliance reporting.