Before he joined Rowleys, our managing partner Robert wrote the audit manual still used by many pension fund auditors today.
He’s used his unique insight to develop a specialist team that offers a level of pension expertise to match that of national or even international accountancy firms. This team is headed up by Matt Hutchinson. As a result we now audit a substantial list of defined benefit pension schemes that look after thousands of members and have assets from a few million to over £160m.
Our approach is simple.
As every scheme has very different requirements, we will spend as much time as necessary to get to know everything about your scheme so we can make sure you meet all of your statutory obligations and reporting requirements.
During the audit itself, we always take a balanced, risk-based approach. We have developed a comprehensive pension audit programme based on a series of checklists that enables us to identify errors and potential risks with controls and report to you as Trustees.
To ensure we have a complete picture to support that programme we will examine:
- Governing documents and actuarial reports
- Contribution schedules
- Scheme membership numbers and allocation into active, deferred and pensioners
- The minutes from your trustee meetings
- Correspondence with the Pensions Regulator
- Your accounting systems, books and records
- Investment reconciliations and custodian arrangements
- The valuation of investments and transaction movements
- Any additional factors that could be of interest to The Pensions Regulator
- The pensioner payroll and a review of a sample of member files
- Benefit calculations, authorisation procedures and bulk transfer agreements
And because of the volume of pension work we do, we will be able to not only identify any potential risks but also suggest practical solutions you can use to stop risk turning into issues that will impact on your members.
If you have any questions or want to discuss anything of concern, we’ll be at the end of the phone.
If your needs change or a new approach is required, our size means we can change tack immediately without having to wait for ‘head office approval’.
If your trustees need us to interpret the relevant Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) or accounting best practice, you only have to ask.
If you need us to work with your other advisers, we’ll find the most efficient way to do so.
Or, if you ever need a new adviser in another profession, we will be pleased to introduce you to someone we trust from our network.
