I was teaching a series of customized training on “Financial Interpretation and Due Diligence for Non-Finance Professionals” for a client when one of the participants asked me how do we check if a public accounting firm and it’s partner is legitimate.
Whilst we are used to being checked by public accounting firms for their know-your-client (KYC) procedures, it struck me that we also have to check that our auditors are bona fide. So far, I have taken the statutory auditor’s words at face value because as a Fellow Chartered Accountant (Singapore), I know that it can be quite a serious breach of the professional code of conduct for accountants for one to represent to be a public accountant when they are not.
But criminals and crooks have possibly no qualms about doing so.
I managed to figure out how to check the registration status of the public accounting firm through ACRA BizFile which is not new to most people. But finding out the Engagement Partner’s PA (Public Accountant) licence number without the them providing it to the client is not so common just based on the full name of the partner.
I have recorded my steps in this explainer video. I used an actual firm to test if my search results were valid and have masked out their name and the name of the partner just to provide some privacy although it is not mandatory given that they are searchable on ACRA. So please bear with the grey rectangles that were included in the video for privacy reasons.
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