You want or need to find an external auditor in France (commissaire aux comptes) to review and certify your French accounts, correct financial anomalies, improve your internal control or oversee financial transactions.
As a statutory auditor, member of the French Institute of Statutory Auditors (CNCC), we perform financial audits to certify your French annual accounts but also perform required specific legal audits such as investment or contributions audit (commissaire aux apports) as well as transformation audit (commissaire à la transformation), merger audit (commissaire à la fusion) or demerger audit (commissaire à la scission).
Financial audit in France and the French external auditor
The external auditor, during her or his legal audit in France, performs various statutory audit tasks, namely:
1. Audit of the French annual accounts and consolidated accounts
Defined by Article L. 823-9 of the French Code of Commerce, the annual accounts audit mission for their certification is carried out by the statutory auditor in accordance with the Audit Professional Standards in France set by the French Institute of Statutory Auditors (CNCC).
2. Specific audit checks
The auditor’s specific checks focus on equality between shareholders, financial information, regulated agreements (conventions réglementées) and, if applicable, forward-looking financial information.
3. Preventing business difficulties
When the auditor finds facts that could jeopardize the continuity of the company’s operations, he then seizes the company’s management.
4. The revelation of known criminal facts in the exercise of her or his mission
The Statutory Auditor has an obligation to disclose the criminal facts to the Prosecutor of the French Republic when he detects, in the exercise of his mission, facts that could constitute criminal offenses.
5. Audit related interventions
Audit related interventions are a result of events occurring in the company or specific transactions decided by the company in France such as a capital increase by offsetting with receivables, the removal of the preferential subscription right, the capital reduction, etc.
The specific other legal missions of the auditor in France
The statutory auditor in France may conduct specific missions, the four main ones being:
1. Contractual audit
The statutory auditor intervenes at the request of the client on contractual audits. These audits are not required by law but meet the specific needs of executives or shareholders.
2. Investment or contributions audit
The purpose of the investment or contributions auditor is to give her or his opinion on the value of the contributions made by a natural or legal person to a company.
3. Merger audit or demerger audit
The purpose of the merger or demerger audit is to give an opinion on the fairness of the remuneration for contributions made in the context of a merger or demerger.
4. Transformation audit
The transformation audit aims to both certify that the legal conditions allowing the transformation of the corporate form are met (SA, SAS, SARL …) and to give the shareholders an analysis of the company’s situation if necessary.
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