Replies

1. 
   RW | Jan 09, 2007 05:26am | #1

   Typical, guy walks in, wants basically to see everything you've paid out to subs and ensure that you have copies of their liability insurance for the period in question. If you have everything he'd want sitting there organised, its pretty much in and out. If you make him hunt and work for it . . .

   Real trucks dont have sparkplugs

1. 
   Ronbaby | Jan 09, 2007 05:31am | #2

   Would he need to go through my checkbook? I've got everything in quickbooks, pretty damn organized.

1. 
   RW | Jan 09, 2007 05:44am | #3

   They've never looked into the business accounts with me. Usually the guy shows up, I show him the folder with everything they want in it, he sits down and looks it over briefly, says something about "I wish everyone was" and leaves. Incentive to have it all together. I don't want him hanging around long either. Its just a big sump on my time anytime someone wants to dot their i's and cross their t's on my clock. First impressions are worth a lot.

   Look at it this way. The company he works for, they get a flat rate per audit. Hes interested in less time too, unless theres $ to be made. If you have your ducks in a row and are playing by the rules and that's readily apparent, nobody's served by wasting anyones time. Real trucks dont have sparkplugs

2. 
   MikeSmith | Jan 09, 2007 05:55am | #4

   ron.. he's going to want yur payroll records and copies of your 941 quarterly reports

   also very important to have ins. certificates from every sub

   those, together with your

   qb reports should take care of everything

   Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
3. 
   MSA1 | Jan 09, 2007 07:02am | #5

   I had a comp audit last year. Mine was no big deal. it was done by phone. The lady asked for totals paid to each and a fax of their comp policy for the period in question.

   I did get bit by my old DW sub. When I first started using subs I was new to the whole thing and used them on a few small jobs. As I grew to depend on my subs I started asking for policies. The DW sub said he had one and he didnt.

   It cost me (I think) around $1000 for trusting him. Now no one works without a comp policy. My old DW sub now works at Home Depot.

   
   

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   Edited 1/8/2007 11:05 pm ET by MSA1

4. 
   shelternerd | Jan 09, 2007 07:26am | #6

   Pull a vendor report for the audit period in question. Export to Excel. Run through it and delete all the suppliers that only supplied materials, the neighbor kid that mows the lawn etc... print it out and hand it to to the auditor with a three ring binder with all your certificates in alphabetical order. keep the old ones until they are three years out of date. I been stung more than once with current certificates but missing ones for 12 months ago... He may also want to see 1099's W2's and quarterlies.

5. 
   blue_eyed_devil | Jan 09, 2007 05:51pm | #7

   Routine.

   We ran into a problem one year when a different auditor showed up and wanted certs from our crane rental operator. He billed us at $120 per hour, four hour markup and we had a sizable number paid out to him. The auditor billed us for the entire amount as labor even though we had allocated those payments to crane rentals.

   The expensed dollars were correctly accounted for in rentals and the crane operator didn't supply us with a cert because we had never had to supply one in the previous 15 years. I mention this only to show you how some auditors will choose to scrutinize your books.

   Of course, we didn't pay the fee for insuring the crane operator, but we did have to scramble to obtain proof that he was covered.

   Our bad.

   blue

   "...if you just do what you think is best testing those limits... it's pretty easy to find exactly where the line is...."

   From the best of TauntonU.

1. 
   MikeSmith | Jan 09, 2007 08:31pm | #8

   i had a mason who took off for deer hunting right at audit time

   they got about $1200 additioonal premium because i didn't have t acert from him

   took a lot of paper work after the new year started to get credited for the premium AFTER i finally got a Certificate from him for the period in question

   Cert. of Ins. from your subs is really big.. and like you said... they ASSUME the entire amount is labor .. so you wind up being charged huge premiums for subs missing certificatesMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore

6. 
   jonblakemore | Jan 10, 2007 07:39am | #9

   My audits are by phone, so I guess it varies from region to region.

   I would call the company that is doing the audit and see what they would like to see.

    

   Jon Blakemore

   RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA