Company Auditors

A company auditor audits the financial records of businesses to establish compliance. There are various ways to become a company auditor registered under ASIC. All of these ways require you to show that you have sufficient skills, qualifications, and you’re capable and fit to become registered. The ways include:

Qualifications

You can become a registered company auditor based on your qualifications, and this happens in two instances;

  • Prescribed Qualifications: You can become a registered company auditor through qualifications from specified Australian institutions. You must be able to provide a letter from the institution that certifies you as having the qualification experience of at least three years of studying accounting (including auditing) and at least two years studying commercial law (including company law). A certified academic transcript can be used to prove this.
  • Equivalent Qualifications: Where you do not meet the requirements of the prescribed qualification, you can show that you have the qualifications equivalent to that being asked by providing a statement that outlines your qualifications and shows that you have all the knowledge being asked for in the prescribed qualification. It must also contain reasons why your experience and qualifications should be treated as equivalent. You must also provide a letter from an Australian professional accounting association that you belong to, confirming that any foreign qualification you hold is equivalent to Australian qualifications.

Skill

The other means of meeting requirements is by proving skills. There are three ways you can do this;

  • Approved auditing competency standard: You can prove this by submitting a completed logbook and statement from referee or assessor stating that based on a formal assessment, you have shown competence in the required tasks for a continuous period of 3 – 5 years.
  • Prescribed practical experience: You must show you have a minimum of 3000 hours of experience auditing under the supervision of a registered company auditor. Your audit work must include those under section 307-309 of the Corporation Act. For such experience to be valid, it must be within five years before the date of application and must include a minimum of 750 hours supervising companies auditing.
  • Equivalent Practical Experience: This is for those who can’t meet the prescribed experience. For this, you must supply information about your equivalent experience which must be in the opinion of ASIC, comparable to the prescribed experience.

Apart from these qualifications and skill, you must be capable, fit, and proper. Capability is shown through a capability report which details of three significant audits you have performed and a declaration of capability from the capability declarants that you nominate.

Another way to register as a company auditor is to be an authorised audit company. For you to do this, the requirements are more stringent. For instance, each director of the company must be registered company auditor; you must be able to prove that your company is capable of meeting all requirements regarding control and ownership of the company, qualified and fit directors, professional indemnity insurance, and many others.