Trade Payables

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Many of the audit procedures that are carried out on the payables balance are similar in principle to those that are carried out on receivables balances.

Note, however, that the auditor will be particularly worried about the possible understatement of payables: how can the auditor detect a payable that is missing from the financial statements?

• Agree the sum of list of individual suppliers' balances to the trade payables account balance in the general ledger. If they do not agree, reconcile. Agree the general ledger balance to the financial statements.
  

• Correspondence with suppliers and board minutes may allow identification of disputes or amounts which might not be paid, or amounts which may not yet appear in the trade payables account, but which are being claimed by suppliers or other parties. It’s often by reviewing correspondence in board minutes that contingent liabilities are discovered. Contingent liabilities arise because of some event which has already happened, but whose outcome is uncertain. For example, a legal claim. Later you will see how contingent assets and contingent liability should be treated in the financial statements.
  

• Trace from purchase orders to goods received notes (where relevant) to purchase invoices and credit entries in suppliers’ - to ensure completeness and an accurate cut-off. Trace from credit entries in the accounts to purchase invoices then back to goods received notes (where relevant) and purchase orders - to ensure existence.
  

• Trace payments in the bank ledger account (before and just after year end) to suppliers’ accounts and vice versa - to ensure accurate cut-off. Reviewing after-date payments may identify year-end liabilities; if not included in the payables balance these will need to be accrued (see next Chapter).
  

• Payment period, that is the number of days of purchases in payables. It is calculated as payables divided by purchases per day. If the payables period increases, it may indicate that the company is being more careful about when payments are made, but it could indicate that the company is having difficulty making payments as they become due. By increasing the payables period, the company might begin to lose out on receiving cash discounts. This can become quite an expensive source of finance and needs some explanation.
  

• Carry out or reperform reconciliations of individual payables balances to suppliers' statements. If the client does not receive regular monthly statements from suppliers, the auditor may use external confirmation procedures to request direct evidence of amounts owing at the reporting date.

• Suppliers' statement reconciliations are the main audit procedure to verify the completeness of trade payables. All reconciling items must be properly accounted for. For example:
  

  • Cash-in-transit (i.e. payments by client not received by supplier) - confirm that payment appears on the bank statements shortly after the year end;
    

  • Goods-in-transit (i.e. goods invoiced by supplier not recorded by the client) - confirm that goods were received after the year end or, if received before the year end, that the invoice has been accrued;
    

  • Disputed invoices (e.g. not recorded by the client because the goods were refused or returned) - if dispute is valid, invoice should be subsequently cancelled with a credit note from the supplier.