FREE 4+ Financial Statement Review Checklist Samples in PDF | DOC

If you have a business that you own and manage, you might be familiar with creating a financial statement. Financial statements are essential to have because it reflects your financial activity. For big businesses, they hire accountants to create and review these important documents. To make sure the financial statements are free from errors and the information must be factual and accurate. To make sure no section is forgotten, a checklist is a must-have to check that all information is reviewed well. This article will guide you on how to create a financial statement review checklist.

If you have a business that you own and manage, you might be familiar with creating a financial statement. Financial statements are essential to have because it reflects your financial activity. For big businesses, they hire accountants to create and review these important documents. To make sure the financial statements are free from errors and the information must be factual and accurate. To make sure no section is forgotten, a checklist is a must-have to check that all information is reviewed well. This article will guide you on how to create a financial statement review checklist.

4+ Financial Statement Review Checklist Samples

1. Financial Statement Review Checklist

2. Annual Financial Statement Review Checklist

3. Checklist for Financial Statement Review

4. Financial Statement Desk Review Checklist

5. Legal Financial Statement Review Checklist

What is a Financial Statement?

A financial statement is a formal record of an individual’s or a business or non-profit entity’s financial activity. A financial statement lets people see the current operations of the entity and forecast their future vision and plans. Financial statements are important to obtain bank loans or attract investors. To make an accurate and informative financial statement, they do day-to-day bookkeeping and they will get the data here for their financial statement.

How to Create a Financial Statement Review Checklist

1. Prepare the Checklist

You might need to prepare a writing instrument and a notebook or paper or use a checklist template to help you to list down the checklist for your financial statement review. You can refer to the sample checklist provided above. They are free and easy to download so you can download any template that you fancy using.

2. List Down the Details Needed for the Review

The details in a financial review statement checklist can vary; it depends on who will review your financial statement. However, to be on the safe side, you can include first the following details listed below. These details are general and the most common details in a financial statement that are likely to be reviewed. Ask the person such as an investor or an accountant to provide you their review guidelines first to know what parts of the financial statement they will be looking for. Some of them have different categories for reviewing the financial statement.

1. Statement of Financial Position: Ensure that all accounts have a corresponding note if necessary. The total assets must be equal to the total equity and liabilities. An assessment must be prepared.
2. Statement of Changes in Equity: Make sure that the disclosed information of the total comprehensive income disclosed in the statement of changes in equity correlates with the statement of comprehensive income.
3. Statement of Cash Flow: Ensure that the finance income and finance expenses details correlate with the information in the statement of cash flows. Check if all additions and investments details coincide with the notes and calculation schedules.  The net cash agrees to the face of the statement of financial position.
4. Qualitative Aspects of the Financial Statements: Check if the financial year-end date is correct in titles and column headings and if a consistent format is followed. Review the accuracy of the calculations of the total amounts in the financial statements and other tables in the annual report. Check if the statements are correctly named and match the contents page. See if the values on the financial statements correlate to the values in the corresponding note.
5. Accounting Policies: Make sure that the accounting policies are consistent with all financial statements. Accounting policies and notes must contain the statement of compliance with the important financial report framework, other accounting policies used that help understand what financial statements are, and other financial disclosures.

FAQs

Before submitting your financial statement, make sure to read through them and other reports to make sure they are aligned with each other. If there are inconsistencies or unnecessary information, make sure to review and fix the problem right away with your audit team to decide what is the best thing to do with these instances. To help you get started making your financial statement checklist, download our free sample templates provided above to use as your guide!