In some jurisdictions, auditors often
provide supplemental non-audit services such as financial
statement preparation, word processing, translation or other
services in conjunction with statutory audits. In such
instances, it’s crucial to evaluate these non-audit services
separately from the statutory audit, so they can be
appropriately evaluated for permissibility under the
applicable independence standards.
To facilitate this process, changes have been implemented in
Sentinel. Two new Sentinel taxonomy codes have been created,
one for financial statement preparation services, and the
other for financial statement word processing and/or
translation services. Sentinel requestors will be reminded
of these typical supplemental services when submitting
Sentinel requests for statutory audits. They will be asked
whether additional services are being provided alongside the
statutory audit, and if so, to select all relevant non-audit
service taxonomy codes.
Sentinel Lead Partners can then approve Sentinel requests
once all services have been reviewed for permissibility and
we have received necessary pre-approvals from the Audit
Committee or Those Charged with Governance. When approving a
request in Sentinel, it is helpful for the SLP to include
reminders to the requestor in their approval comments.
For financial statement preparation services to a subsidiary
with the same year-end as the parent audit client, SLPs
should include a reminder that services cannot start until
the audit report for the parent company’s group financial
statements has been issued. When a Sentinel request only
identifies audit services, the SLP can indicate in their
comments that approval is solely related to the submitted
audit service. By adopting these practices within Sentinel,
both requestors and reviewers can significantly reduce the
risk of independence violations. This streamlined approval
process also allows for quicker speed to market and improved
client relationships.