Assurance

Grant Thornton has more than 18,000 people committed to delivering best-in-class assurance services in more than 140 countries. A key component of our global strategy is to promote the delivery of consistent, high quality client service worldwide.

Grant Thornton Cyprus can provide you with innovative assurance services covering the following:

• statutory audit
• voluntary statutory audits
• non-statutory audits, including compilation reports
• financial reporting services - IFRS.

Why Grant Thornton?

We have the size, scope, breadth, depth and global reach to serve dynamic organisations around the world. Our teams can provide you with assurance services that deliver real value and support investor confidence.

We coordinate, cooperate and communicate based on our shared global strategy, which ultimately leads to greater consistency and better quality. 

A culture of quality

Our reputation is built on the quality of the work we deliver. Our approach to quality assurance is designed not only to ensure compliance with all relevant regulatory requirements, but more importantly to ensure that we deliver the absolute best to our clients every time we work with them. 

We offer robust independence as a core value against which all of our services and people are assessed; more hands-on input and accessibility at senior level; more face-to-face time with clients; to take the time to understand clients’ needs; specialists that operate outside technical silos; and sector and industry specialists with breadth and depth of expertise. 

We approach each audit with sharp thought, straight talk and common sense. In addition to verifying that financial results are fairly presented and meet applicable professional standards, we provide observations and insight into the real performance of your business.

We have a dedicated quality monitoring programme that focuses on the six elements of International Standard on Quality Control (ISQC) 1. Under this programme, we review the audit quality of all our member firms and provide feedback on the design, implementation and operation of their assurance practice quality control.

This rigorous approach helps make sure we deliver consistent, quality services for our clients worldwide over the longer term.

A single global audit approach

Our audit approached is governed by policies that ensure compliance with the International Standards on Auditing, International Standards on Quality Control and the IFAC Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants.

We use one audit methodology globally, which means we can offer you consistent, high quality services wherever you are in the world. 

Our audit methodology, Horizon, features a partner-led process that focuses our audit efforts on those areas of your financial statements that represent the greatest risk.

Horizon also features integrated quality-control processes, including policies and procedures for engagement quality-control review. The Horizon methodology is supported by the Voyager suite: an integrated set of six proprietary software tools. 

International Financial Reporting Standards

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), are a set of global accounting standards developed by the International Accounting Standards Board for the preparation of public company financial statements. With well over 100 countries using them, they are fast becoming the global accounting language.

Using IFRSs can help increase the quality, comparability and transparency of your financial information. Applying them correctly will increase your company's credibility and improve access to credit and investment opportunities.

The Standards are very detailed and technical. To the untrained eye, they can appear hard to navigate. But at Grant Thornton, we have people who are very well versed in their intricacies and can translate them into language that you can understand and apply to your financial statements.

IFRS reporting services consist of:

• offering regular training programmes
• providing assistance in selecting suitable accounting policies in order to fairly present an entity’s financial position and financial performance.
• providing assistance for the identification and monitoring of all necessary reporting disclosures application for the preparation of IFRS financial statements.

Grant Thornton publishes extensive technical and interpretive guidance, newsletters and other tools and resources. Grant Thornton also actively contributes to the development of IFRS. This includes the submission of global comment letters on proposals for new and amended standards as well as participation in roundtables and other events. We are also a member of the IFRS Interpretations Committee, the IFRS Advisory Council and the IFRS for SMEs Implementation Group.

Our IFRS advisers can help you navigate the complexity of the Standards so you can focus your time and effort on running your business. One of our core skills is the composition of our team with highly qualified professionals who possess both the experience and the know-how. 

Our partners are actively involved in various committees regarding the profession in Cyprus. Specifically, we have had representations on the Audit committee and IFRS committee of ICPAC and our regulatory body.

Grant Thornton Audit Review

Having a robust process of quality control is one of the most effective ways to guarantee we deliver high quality services to our clients.

To accomplish this, each member firm submits to an inspection of its quality control system under the Grant Thornton Audit Review (GTAR) at least once every three years.

The GTAR monitors compliance with professional standards and global audit policies. It is conducted by independent partners and managers from other member firms under the direction of the global audit quality control leader.

The inspection process includes an evaluation of the member firm’s assurance policies, benchmarking these against the international organisation. The team reviews financial statements, audit reports, engagement work papers and files, and interviews partners and staff.

The report on a firm’s quality-control system will report one of the following:

• suitably designed and operating effectively (an unqualified report)
• suitably designed and operating effectively except for one or more significant deficiencies (an except-for report)
• having material weaknesses in the design or operation of the quality-control system (an adverse report).

When the GTAR identifies a deficiency, the member firm is expected to address the deficiency and document its action plan to address the findings within a reasonable period of time and submit appropriate documentation. When follow up actions are required by member firms to address findings identified during the GTAR, a further visit or remote assessment is made to review progress in implementing these actions.

Learn more about our GTAR process in our latest transparency report.

We apply our global audit methodology through an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite.

The suite includes:

Voyager: a tool for assisting audit teams in the identification of financial statement risks and linkage to the processes and internal controls established to address those risks. Voyager also assists audit teams in documenting, evaluating and testing internal controls and designing an appropriate substantive response.

Client acceptance: an application that enforces policies and procedures that each member firm must adopt to accept a new assurance engagement.

Our audit teams also use a data extraction and analysis tool, IDEA, to analyse large amounts of financial data and generate confirmations. Using IDEA, we access this data in a matter of seconds.

If you have any questions or would like to find out more about how we can help, please contact our head of Assurance Froso Yiangoullis.