My name is Constance Kawelenga and I am a registered Chartered Accountant and Auditor, and today we’re going to talk about Audit deadlines and reports submitted to the Legal Practice Council.
The auditor of a legal practitioner’s trust account must ensure that they furnish the Council with an audit report within 6 months of the financial year end.
Below we cover the two documents which must be submitted to the Legal Practice Council:
1. Attorney’s Annual Statement on Trust Account
The Attorney’s Annual Statement on Trust Account is a document that contains an attorney’s compliance representations to the relevant Provincial Law Society, and information extracted from the trust accounting records previously dealt with in the auditor’s report.
The statement is to accompany the auditor’s report. It is to be submitted in original form (on paper) to the Legal Practice Council.
It contains representations about internal controls and record-keeping, as well as compliance to FICA (Financial Intelligence Centre Act). The representations from the attorney are specifically about the following areas:
- Interest earned
- Trust balances, and
- Bank balances
This report is completed and signed by the attorney.
2. Audit report
The audit report:
- Covers compliance with sections of the Legal Practice Act
- Spells out the responsibility for the attorney to maintain books and records
- Auditor’s responsibility to be independent and perform quality audit
- Report whether trust accounts were indeed maintained in compliance with the act and rules
- Confirm the information on the The Attorney’s Annual Statement on Trust Account is aligned to information per audit
Conclusion
And that in a nutshell covers the topic of the trust audit with respect to the deadlines as well as the documents that should be submitted to the Legal Practice Council.
