The Public Interest Score, from the client's own records — and reviewed by a second person
Achekam reads the year's turnover and third-party liabilities from the mapped trial balance, the average employees from payroll and the people with a beneficial interest from the share records, works out the score and the requirement it leads to, and names every figure it could not find.
Whether a company needs an audit, an independent review or neither is a common source of risk for a firm. Achekam prepares one Public Interest Score assessment per client and financial year from the client's own records, and a partner, manager or administrator who did not prepare it reviews it before it counts.
What it covers
- Inputs read from the records, never defaulted — Turnover and third-party liabilities come from the year's trial balance once every line has an approved mapping; the employee average comes from payroll, day by day where the dates allow. A figure that cannot be read is named as missing, and the assessment waits for it.
- The requirement, worked out — From the score, whether the statements are compiled internally or independently, owner-management, fiduciary assets, the memorandum of incorporation and the company type, the assessment determines audit, independent review or exempt — and suggests the engagement type, which a partner records.
- Preparer and reviewer kept apart — The preparer cannot review their own assessment: the service refuses it and the database refuses it again. A reviewed assessment is frozen; a correction is a new version.
- Engagements that do not meet it are flagged — When an assessment is reviewed, each engagement of the year whose recorded assurance does not meet the requirement is flagged. Who may perform the engagement is checked separately, against the credentials recorded for the practitioner.
What it does not do
- The assessment is prepared per client and year by a person; it is not recalculated on every posting.
- The interactive calculator on this page is an illustration of the formula, not the product's assessment.
The standard behind it
Companies Act 71 of 2008, Section 30(2) and (2A); Regulations 26, 27, 28 and 29. Regulation 26 sets the four parts of the Public Interest Score; Regulations 28 and 29 and section 30 set which companies are audited, independently reviewed or exempt.
Questions
- How are employees counted?
- By the method profile in force: a daily weighted average over the financial year from each employee's start and end dates, falling back to month-end headcounts of the approved payroll runs where the dates are missing. A preparer may state their own average only with a documented reason.
- What if a figure is missing?
- The assessment is saved as needing review, with each missing item named, and cannot be reviewed until the data is resolved and it is prepared again.
