Audit Evidence Engagement

Who it is for

Engagement partners, managers, and group controllers who need a complete, indexed set of audit evidence for a Hong Kong statutory or group reporting audit. Typical clients include mid-tier firms covering multiple subsidiaries and finance teams preparing their first audited year under tighter review timelines.

Result

By the agreed handover date you receive an evidence index tied to lead schedules, a folder of supporting documents referenced to working-paper codes, a status list of residual gaps, and a short memo describing collection challenges the reviewer should know about.

Scope included

• Review of the trial balance, materiality notes, and prior-year query points
• Assertion-to-source mapping for material account balances
• Construction of the evidence index and naming convention
• Coordination of document requests with the client finance contact
• Filing of bank confirmations, contracts, board minutes, reconciliations, and other agreed support
• Final pack assembly and walkthrough with the engagement manager

Scope excluded

• Issuing the auditor’s opinion or signing audit reports
• Performing substantive testing or sampling on behalf of the auditor
• Legal opinions, valuation reports, or specialist actuarial work
• Bookkeeping or preparation of the financial statements themselves

Provider

Senior evidence coordinators at Smartdatalinker, supervised from our Wan Chai office. Where your firm’s methodology requires specific tick-mark or referencing rules, we adopt those conventions rather than imposing ours.

Process

1. Scoping call — entity list, reporting date, current state of the PBC list, and access method for shared folders.
2. Evidence map — draft index circulated for partner approval before collection begins.
3. Collection window — weekly status updates; overdue items escalated to the named controller.
4. Handover — pack delivered with gap log; optional on-site walkthrough in Hong Kong.

Preparation

Please have available: latest trial balance, chart of accounts, prior-year management letter points, engagement letter scope summary, and a single finance contact authorised to release documents.

Constraints

We need read access to the document repository within five business days of kickoff. Multi-entity groups with more than eight subsidiaries require a phased timeline agreed in writing. Work already past the planned fieldwork start date may be accepted only as a recovery engagement with a narrower scope.

Fee basis

Quoted as a fixed fee per entity after scoping. Starting reference for a single private company with a straightforward balance sheet is shown on our Fees page. Complex groups and first-year audits are priced after reviewing the trial balance and prior queries.

Next step

Request a scoping call with the reporting date and a short note on where the working papers currently sit.