Who Prepares the File Before the Auditor

Support prepares the evidence before review

Liquidation audit support sits between the closing ledger and the person who reviews or signs the required report. The support file turns exports into reconciliations, schedules and explanations. It should let a reviewer trace a closing balance to a bank statement, settlement record, asset document or tax return without asking the former finance team to rebuild the file from memory.

Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 on Commercial Companies assigns the liquidator the closing duties. Article 320 requires an immediate inventory of assets and liabilities. Article 321 requires a detailed list, a balance sheet signed with management and a record of liquidation transactions. Support prepares the evidence behind those duties. It does not take them away from the liquidator.

The published FTA services identify the documents for tax deregistration, but they do not state which internal workpaper format a particular auditor or licensing authority will accept. That boundary matters. Exiloz prepares schedules, reconciliations and FTA support. It is not the statutory auditor, liquidator or a registered Tax Agent, and cannot decide whether the FTA accepts an application. We would not call the file ready until the appointed reviewer confirms the open evidence, because a neat schedule is not an approval.

Use support when the closing file has loose ends

Support is useful when the company has stopped trading but the books have not been closed. The usual warning signs are unreconciled bank accounts, balances carried for years, missing asset records, unallocated receipts, old supplier credits and tax ledgers that do not match filed returns. These issues are small on a screen and slow in a review because each one needs a conclusion.

A company with a current ledger and complete evidence may need only a focused handover. A company with several accounts, unpaid staff claims, stock, leases or related-party balances needs a wider schedule pack. The point is not to buy a longer report. It is to clear the exact records that would make the auditor or liquidator stop and ask for more.

Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025 requires a taxable person outside a Tax Group with revenue exceeding AED 50,000,000 in the relevant Tax Period, and every Qualifying Free Zone Person, to prepare and maintain audited financial statements for Corporate Tax purposes. That rule identifies a possible audit requirement. It does not make Exiloz the statutory auditor.

• Unreconciled bank and tax balances.
• Missing asset, debt or employee evidence.
• A final ledger that does not match the licence date.
• A separate statutory audit requirement under Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025.

The deliverable is an indexed closing trail

The first deliverable is a final trial balance tied to the general ledger and the agreed cut-off. From there, prepare bank reconciliations, receivable and payable schedules, loan and owner balances, payroll settlements, asset disposals and the proposed distribution schedule. Every schedule should state the balance, the evidence, the action taken and what remains open.

The tax section should reconcile VAT and Corporate Tax ledgers to returns, payments, credits, penalties and deregistration applications. The FTA Corporate Tax service lists a licence cancellation document and financial statements up to and including the cancellation date for liquidation or closure. The VAT service asks for closure documents and a latest financial statement, which may be audited or unaudited.

The exclusions matter as much as the deliverables. Support does not sign the statutory audit report, approve the liquidator's final account, cancel a licence or decide whether the FTA accepts an application. It also cannot turn a missing source document into evidence. The client must supply records and approve settlement decisions.

• Cut-off trial balance and ledger tie-out.
• Bank, debt, asset and payroll schedules.
• VAT and Corporate Tax reconciliation pack.
• Open-items register for the auditor and liquidator.

Move from raw records to a review pack

Start with the appointment documents, licence, constitutional records, prior accounts, ledger export and tax registrations. Fix the cut-off before fixing the format. A schedule prepared for the wrong date can be neat and still unusable. The support lead should record the date, source file and owner for each opening balance.

Next, reconcile the high-risk balances first. Match bank accounts to statements, receivables to collections or approved write-offs, payables to supplier evidence, employee amounts to settlement proof and assets to sale or transfer records. Reconcile tax accounts to returns and payments. This order exposes cash and debt problems while there is still someone who can answer them.

Then issue the indexed pack for review. The liquidator can use it for the inventory, transaction record and final account. The statutory auditor can use the schedules as working-paper support. The FTA can receive the required tax documents. Keep questions and answers in the index rather than scattering them through email.

• Set the date and source owner for each balance.
• Reconcile cash and debt before presentation work.
• Tie tax ledgers to returns and payments.
• Issue one indexed pack with an open-items register.

The right support prevents duplicated review

The support fee is driven by the state of the records, the number of balances and the number of review rounds. Missing bank statements, unclear related-party accounts and asset disposals without sale evidence create research work. A written schedule of open items protects both sides. It shows which work is included and which decision must come from the client, liquidator, auditor or authority.

The worked classification test is narrow but useful. Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025 uses revenue exceeding AED 50,000,000 for a taxable person outside a Tax Group. AED 50,000,000 plus AED 1 equals AED 50,000,001, which is above that threshold. The arithmetic only shows when that category is crossed. It does not decide every audit obligation or appoint an auditor.

A file is ready when a reviewer can ask for the source of a balance and find it in the index. If the source is missing, the file should say so and record the proposed next action. That admission is safer than presenting an unexplained zero. It also tells the client why more work may be needed before closure.