Upcoming courses
Our full 2025 CPD programme is on our website.
You can download our booking form and brochure here.
Date – Time – Course – Presenter
2nd Oct – 1.00-2.00 – Maintaining Focus and Motivation – Nicky Clough
7th Oct – 1.30-4.30 – Autumn Tax Update – Rebecca Benneyworth
8th Oct – 9.30-12.30 – Fraud, Journals and Data Analytics – Jez Williams
9th Oct – 9.30-11.30 – IFRS Comprehensive Refresher – Clare Jones
9th Oct – 11.45-12.45 – IFRS Update – Clare Jones
13th Oct – 9.30-12.30 – Autumn Financial Reporting Update – John Selwood
14th Oct – 9.30-12.30 – Audit – All the Bits you used to Know – Maya Norbury
21st Oct – 9.30-11.30 – How to Audit a Charity – Richard Hemmings
21st Oct – 12.30-1.30 – Auditing Accounting Estimates – Richard Hemmings
22nd Oct – 9.30-11.30 – FRS 102 Periodic Review – Revenue – Peter Herbert
22nd Oct – 12.30-2.00 – Ethics for Accountants and Auditors – Peter Herbert
24th Oct – 9.30-12.30 – Family Tax Planning – Malcolm Greenbaum
Our 2025 AML, Ethics and GDPR E-Learning Programmes are available now.
“Excellent delivery, easily understood with some good points raised.” Delegate, Autumn series
FAQs from recent courses
Audit
Is directional testing becoming less of a focus, with more emphasis placed on the risk?
Directional testing is based on the principle that every transaction in the accounts has a debit and a corresponding credit entry. The debit side of the transaction is typically tested for overstatement and the credit side for understatement.
This means that when testing, for example, income, the auditor tends to focus more on completeness than occurrence.
However, it’s important to ensure that you aren’t planning your testing approach before understanding the risk you are mitigating.
A good audit will perform a risk assessment to identify material misstatement risks, then plan the approach to address those individual audit risks.
If you have identified that there is an incentive for management to understate revenue, you would need to plan directional testing to test for the completeness of income. If, however, you have identified there is an incentive to overstate revenue, you would plan for directional testing to cover the occurrence of income – though some work on completeness would also be necessary
By identifying the risks and then developing your audit test in response to the risk to determine with direction of testing, directional testing should not become less of a focus.
Financial Reporting
Is any specific disclosure required when an entity has prepared their financial statements on a going concern basis?
There is a currently a presumption in FRS 102 that the financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis unless stated otherwise. No specific disclosure is required where this presumption applies, other than where material uncertainties cast significant doubt on going concern. However, some entities choose to include disclosure on why the accounts have been prepared on a going concern basis within their accounting policy notes.
A new paragraph (3.8A) is included within FRS 102 for p/c 1st January 2026, which states:
“When an entity prepares financial statements on a going concern basis, it shall disclose that fact, together with confirmation that management has considered information about the future…”
This isn’t a huge change in the standard compared to other changes in respect of the lease accounting and revenue recognition. However, it will ensure consistency and clarity across all sets of financial statements.
Charity and Housing Association Financial Reporting
We have a charity client with a 31st March year end; they registered as a Registered Social Landlord on 1st January. Which SORP should the financial statements be prepared under and what are the main considerations that need to made?
When an entity becomes a Registered Social Landlord during the financial year, the Housing SORP should be applied at year end. The Housing SORP is strict on registered charitable social housing providers applying the SORP and it being applied in full once they are registered.
A key consideration is that the Charity SORP and the Housing SORP require different accounting treatments for government grants.
The Charity SORP states that the use of the accrual model for recognition of income from government grants is not permitted, therefore the performance model must be used. Whereas, the Housing SORP states that where housing properties are measured at cost, the accrual method must be used and where housing properties are measured at valuation, the performance model must be used.
