Translations for auditing companies

The auditing of a company’s administrative data (in particular its annual reports) is a procedure designed to guarantee correct compliance with accounting regulations. For an audit to be officially valid, the verification of what is erroneously called the audit certificate (more correctly the independent auditor’s report) must be entrusted to qualified and independent professionals: statutory auditors. Auditing companies analyse samples in order to verify the truthfulness and accuracy of the items in a financial statement or consolidated financial statement. Auditing is a mandatory process for listed companies but unlisted companies can also request to undergo a voluntary audit, a due diligence operation of primary importance in the management of investor relations. If the company auditing the annual accounts or consolidated accounts of a company is based in a third country (usually outside Europe), the assessment is even more significant.

This is why many leading auditing firms operating in transnational contexts commission Landoor to translate their account auditing documents. In our Finance department we therefore mainly deal with the translation of auditing reports, the drafting of which must comply with ad hoc regulations in every legal system. For example, in Italy they are written in the form of a letter addressed to shareholders and obligatorily divided into three parts:

indication of the financial statement in question (name of the country and reference period) and those responsible for the drafting and professional assessment of the financial statement (i.e. the directors and auditors)
auditing principles referenced and summary of the procedures carried out (for subjective or statistical sampling
auditor’s assessment (with or without changes, i.e. negative or positive) regarding:

compliance of the financial statements with the accounting principles of reference;
clarity of the text;
truthfulness and accuracy of the representation of the company’s economic and financial position.

This is joined by the translation of the so-called “working papers”, i.e. all of the documentary evidence collected for the audit procedures carried out, probative elements concerning acquisitions and the conclusions of the auditor.

Meanwhile, in the common law system, the last of the above points is substituted by confirmation of the absence of material errors in the financial statement. Our translators and revisers, who boast excellent language skills and extensive experience in the area of high-level consultancy in all spheres of company law, are able to skillfully manage such conceptual differences while always adhering to the national and international auditing standards (IAS – International Accounting Standards and IFRS -International Financial Reporting Standards) that standardise and regulate audit procedures.

As well as certified annual reports, our teams of linguists also translate other reports drafted by companies that have secured an audit contract, such as: