Audit and Assurance

We approach your audit with a deep and broad understanding of your business, the industry in which you operate, and the latest regulatory standards, helping you deliver value confidently through transparency of your reporting to stakeholders.

As at June 2022 the firm engaged around 236 partners and professional staff in Audit and Assurance services who serve our client base that include companies involved in a wide range of businesses such as manufacturing, hospitality, retailing, information technology and financial services.

We carry out audit and assurance services to a number of listed companies, regulated entities such as insurance companies, banks, asset managment clients and other public interest entities. Our list of clients includes not only subsidiaries of multi-national groups but also the small and medium-sized local and international setups.

Our assurance team is highly trained and committed to provide statutory and regulatory audits of the highest standards. We aim to exceed client expectations, by continuously reviewing our own effectiveness and efficiency, and by maintaining close communication with the client throughout the audit process.

Through a broad range of innovative, high-quality and cost effective solutions we can help your business improve its financial control and regulatory reporting systems. In every case, the PwC audit is underpinned by our deep industry knowledge, wide experience and global network of skilled professionals.

 

Based on the company’s needs, we offer dedicated assurance services:

Statutory and Contractual Audits

statutory and contractual audits

The financial statement audit has never been more important. In today’s business environment there is more scrutiny and scepticism of a company’s financial statements than ever before. Investors are seeking more assurance in relation to corporate governance and reporting and they expect greater reliability, more oversight and clear evidence of internal controls. Corporate management, boards and audit committees, internal and external auditors all have important roles to play in providing assurance to investors by executing their respective responsibilities. Meeting investor expectations begins with the completeness and accuracy of information contained in a company’s financial statements.

 

Regulatory Compliance and Reporting

During an office meeting

Regulatory compliance and reporting needs to be viewed as a natural extension of the governance duties shouldered by top management and corporate boards. Moreover, only good governance can ensure that compliance is aligned with the company’s business objectives and risk management strategies and is thereby adding real value and not just costs to the organisation. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that the spirit of compliance, as well as the letter of the law, is embraced in every corner of the enterprise.

For all organisations engaged in activities that are regulated, PwC provides support, advice, and assurance to help you manage your regulatory risks. In an ever-changing regulatory environment, we can help ensure that you identify, manage, and control any exiting and future regulatory risks. A proactive rather than a monitoring approach to regulation is now a full time strategic necessity.

Our people can also assist in the evaluation of new regulations on your business model, provide advice with getting your business authorised by a regulator or provide support in dealing with regulatory enforcement actions and remediation exercises.

Accounting Advisory Services

Architectural construction

Finance functions are operating in a complex and rapidly changing environment. With the continuous developments in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) as adopted by the EU, the areas of financial accounting and reporting have become a lot more challenging for many entities. The preparation of financial information in accordance with the requirements of IFRSs is becoming onerous taking into account the economic substance of transactions and the use of significant management judgments which may impact the recognition, classification, measurement, presentation and disclosure matters. The General Accounting Principles for Smaller Entities (GAPSME) has been an important step towards simplification in Malta; the extent of adoption of these principles by reporting entities in Malta has increased significantly in recent years.

Learn more about Accounting Advisory services

Digital and IT Assurance

People in a square

Our Digital and IT Assurance (DITA) practice provides services related to controls around the financial reporting process, including financial business process and IT management controls.

In today’s business world, IT and financial reporting environments are becoming increasingly complex while even greater reliance is being placed on the information produced by these systems and processes. The involvement of our DITA specialists is essential to providing trust and quality in the assurance business, with the renewed emphasis on data, controls, and secure, reliable and efficient information systems. Our DITA specialists are integrated into financial audit teams. DITA provides both audit and audit-related services such as compliance to regulations. These include IT general control reviews, application controls reviews across various industries, as well as services to improve security and controls.

If you need confidence in the quality of the information produced by your IT systems or you rely on financial information from a third party and need independent assurance on that information, we can help. Our services enable you to gain comfort that your systems, processes and risk management procedures are operating effectively and within a well controlled environment.

 

 

Technology bringing innovation to the audit

The firm continues investing in the suite of tools that support the PwC Audit with three unique technologies — Aura, Halo and Connect. At PwC, we are driving audit innovation, with technology at its heart. The ability to merge market-leading technology with the skills of our people and a robust audit approach is now central to our global audit strategy and delivery. It is the fusion of these three elements that defines our value and drives the audit. The result is quality, efficiency and insight, delivered in equal measure.

Aura is the international platform deployed by PwC Global to ensure that all PwC offices across the network address audit using the same methodology, resulting in a consistent and efficient approach. This results in all of the elements of our audit fitting together seamlessly.

Preview video

Halo is the firm’s data auditing technology that has revolutionised our audits, enabling greater assurance and deeper insight by harnessing the power of data. It scans huge volumes of business-critical data, enabling improvised risk assessment, analysis and testing and unlocking insight.

Connect is our collaborative workflow tool, providing fast, efficient and secure information sharing at every stage of the audit, monitoring the status of information flows on a real time basis.

Connect is our collaborative workflow tool, providing fast, efficient and secure

information sharing at every stage of the audit, monitoring the status of information

flows on a real time basis.

Connect is our collaborative workflow tool, providing fast, efficient and secure

information sharing at every stage of the audit, monitoring the status of information

flows on a real time basis.

Connect is our collaborative workflow tool, providing fast, efficient and secure

information sharing at every stage of the audit, monitoring the status of information

flows on a real time basis.

Preview video

Audit transformation: driving audit through technology

In today’s world, technology is continuously changing the way we live, work and interact with each other. It is crucial that the audit profession keeps pace with such change and is proactive in understanding how emerging technologies can be leveraged to transform the audit process making it more efficient and value adding.

Audit Artificial Intelligence - PwC GL.ai
blockchain in finance

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will represent dramatic and disruptive change in current audit practice that promises to allow auditors to operate more efficiently. RPA has the potential to automate and execute certain audit procedures (e.g. reconciliations) allowing audit teams to focus on more value adding ones thus enhancing audit efficiency and effectiveness.

 

Learn more about Data and Analytics

 

Contact us

Simon Flynn

Simon Flynn

Head of Assurance, PwC Malta

Tel: +356 2564 7292

Follow us