Three words that are not synonyms
An audit is the heavy one. The signer tests the numbers, asks outsiders to confirm balances, and states whether the statements are free of a large misstatement. It takes time because the testing is the product.
A review is narrower. The signer reads the statements, asks questions, and looks for anything that looks wrong, without the full testing of an audit. The report says that limited work out loud. It is not a quiet audit.
A compilation is the lightest report and the easiest to misunderstand. The signer puts your numbers into statement form and says the numbers were not tested. Lenders sometimes ask for it because they want a format, not a verdict. Read the sentence. The sentence is the whole caution.
What each one asks you to produce
An audit asks for support. Invoices, bank confirms, contracts, counts. If the support is missing, the month is not saved by a confident voice. A review asks for explanations of odd swings and for statements that already tie. A compilation asks for numbers that are at least organized, and then it refuses to bless them.
Owners in Amarillo often meet these words in a loan file, a bonding form, or a buyer's list. The word was chosen by someone who is not in the shop. Our job on the first read is to tell you which word it is, and whether the pages under it are books we can close or a report we do not sign.
What you still get while the report is decided
Closed months. A bank that matches. Sales tax that ties to the invoices. Payday set up on a provider. Statements you can read. A return that uses those months. That work does not become an audit because it was done carefully. Careful books are still books. The report, if you need the signed kind, is a separate engagement with a firm that can sign it.
We will not blur that line to win the call. Blurring it is how an owner tells a lender they have a report they do not have.
The musical in the canyon, and a ticket that has a month
The TEXAS outdoor musical has been performed in Palo Duro Canyon since 1966. Texans treat that canyon night as a point of pride, the red walls doing half the scenery. We have not watched that show from the canyon floor. We still know a ticket sold on a Saturday belongs in that Saturday's month, whether the show is a musical or a counter sale.
Lighthouse Peak is a real wall of Palo Duro, and Texans know that wall. We have not stood under it. A deposit still needs a month, and we are the ones who match it to the bank. The musical in that canyon since 1966 does not move the day the deposit belongs to.
A walk through a sentence you can check
Picture a two-page request that says the borrower will provide reviewed financial statements within ninety days of year end. The useful question is not whether we are flattered to be asked. The useful question is whether the statements exist, whether the year is closed, and whether the word reviewed means a signed review. If it means the signed review, we say so and help you get the books ready for the firm that signs. If it means current statements a banker can read, that preparation is the work on this site.
No amount belongs in that picture. Your balances stay off this page. The shape of the ask is enough.
The side-by-side version of audit and review is on its own page. The signature problem, when the block is blank, is on the unnamed signature.
What to gather before anyone tests anything
Even when we are not the signer, the months have to be able to survive a question. Bank statements for the year. The reconciliation that shows which outstanding items are real. Sales-tax returns that match the income. Loan statements. A list of equipment that matches the depreciation schedule you actually use. Contracts that explain a strange deposit. None of that is an audit. All of it is what makes an audit shorter, or makes a banker willing to talk without one.
We build that pile from the closed months, and you are the one who says what a strange line really was. A line we cannot name stays open. An open line is more honest than a confident category. When the pile is complete, you can hand it to the firm that signs, or you can decide the letter never needed that firm. Either ending is a real ending. A year of mush is not.
