Audit of payroll calculations

The work of any enterprise is impossible without the employment of many people who sell their labor in order to earn money. In turn, the company pays them wages as a payment for purchased labor. In order to check whether all calculations are correctly conducted between the owners of the labor force and its buyer, that is, the employer company, an audit of payroll calculations is carried out.

The audit of financial transactions related to the payment of hired labor is carried out in several stages, which are typical for all types of audit. The audit of payroll calculations is carried out in accordance with international audit standards - special documents that regulate all stages of the audit - from drawing up a plan to issuing an opinion. Thanks to the use of these standards, the testing will be uniform for all countries of the world, which is very important for transnational corporations.

Audit of labor remuneration includes checking the following:
The number of employees of the company according to the staff schedule, their salary and premium rates, the number of sick leave, compensatory time off and absenteeism. Thus, the appearance of all obligations of the enterprise to its employees is verified, according to which it must pay them certain amounts as wages.

After checking the occurrence of the enterprise's liabilities to its employees, it is necessary to focus on verifying their implementation by the enterprise. At this point, the audit of payroll expenses focuses on payrolls, bank statements, cash register registers - in short, all those documents that can confirm the fact that employees receive their salary.

Audit payroll calculations should pay special attention to two non-standard cases of wages - sick leave and holidays. Since in these cases the calculation of payments is somewhat different from the standard payment of wages, it is necessary to fully or at least selectively recalculate payments to employees who were on vacation or on sick leave, and to reconcile the figure with the one that was calculated by the company's bookkeeper . In case of discrepancies, it is necessary to liquidate the discrepancy by additional payment or withholding the overpaid amount from the employee.

The last point, which should touch audit payroll calculations - this is the calculations of the company with social insurance funds of citizens, as well as with the tax inspection. The fact is that the company pays taxes for its employees, such as the tax on the financial income of natural persons, as well as various taxes coming into social funds: pension, accident insurance, disability insurance and others. In order to ascertain the correctness of the calculation of these payments, it is necessary to conduct a random check of the calculation for certain categories of employees - this will make it possible to assess the accuracy of calculating the accruals as a whole. If any errors are found, then it is necessary to carry out a full check of calculations for taxes and contributions.

The audit of payroll calculations assumes the issuance of a special conclusion at the end of the audit, which will indicate how things are with the payment of labor at that enterprise, whether there is an unsettled wage arrears, or vice versa, whether wages were paid for unworked hours to employees. Depending on the results of the audit, the management of the enterprise will make further decisions about putting things in order in the financial affairs of the company.