As to soon offer free auditing services- CA SUBODH AGARWAL, President ICAI
The
call for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by the corporate affairs
ministry has turned into a Professional Social Responsibility (PSR) for
lakhs of Chartered Accountants (CAs) who may soon provide
free auditing
and accounting services in the country.
Institute of Chartered
Accountants of India (ICAI), the apex body responsible for accounting
and auditing standards in the country, has decided to offer 'free'
auditing services to at least 100 auditable entities belonging to the
deprived classes, micro, small and medium enterprise or those located in
the tribal, remote and rural areas from this fiscal.
Speaking to
FE, ICAI president Subodh Kumar Agrawal said the CA body is willing to
scale up the free services to up to 1,000 entities, if need be. "ICAI
will now form a panel of volunteering CAs and discuss the modalities for
putting this into effect with the corporate affairs ministry," Agrawal
said.
It will be a first such initiative by CAs since ICAI come into existence in 1949.
But
the concept is not new for the profession around the world. In the UK
and Ireland, the CA firms are providing their advisory, auditing and
accounting services free-of-charge or on reduced rates for charities.
Such services also qualify as community services, especially if provided
to local bodies. The CAs of Ireland have formed a Chartered Accountants
Voluntary Advice service (CAVA) which provides free business advisory
services nationwide.
In order to increase its active
participation in nation building, the ICAI has also entered into a
memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the department of posts. Under
the MoU, ICAI will help India Post in switching over from cash-based
accounting to accrual based accounting. "We are organising a series of
training programmes on accrual basis of accounting in the Postal
Accounts Offices across all 22 circles in the country. In this regard,
programmes have been organised at Jaipur, Bangalore, Lucknow &
Chennai," Agrawal said.
According to ICAI, it has also urged for
mandatory independent information system audits for all cooperative
societies, NGOs and educational trusts apart from internal audits. "The
independent audit through Chartered Accountants would ensure
transparency and reduce the discrepancies. Further for audit of
Cooperative Societies, ICAI has made representations to various state
authorities for empanelment of cooperative auditors," Agrawal said.
Talking
about other recent initiatives, ICAI president said the Securities and
Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had sought support from ICAI to review
the audit qualification of the listed enterprises. "The Sebi has set up a
new Qualified Audit Report Review Committee (QARC) which among other
members will comprise of the representatives of the ICAI and the Stock
Exchanges. While its role will be to guide Sebi in processing the
qualified annual audit reports, ICAI will assess the materiality of the
qualification contained in auditor's report, based on which QARC may
even direct the entity to restate its books of accounts," Agrawal said.
[Source: The Financial Express]