Bank or Government Body Asking for CPA-Certified Financial Statements? What Is Actually Required and How to Prepare It
“Certified” means a report from an auditor licensed by the Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants, not a stamp on statements you prepared yourself. We clarify exactly what the requesting body wants and prepare it within your deadline.
What do “certified financial statements” mean?
Financial statements are prepared under the accounting standards approved in the Kingdom (Article 17 of the Companies Law) and are certified by an auditor licensed to practise in the Kingdom (Article 18) through a report issued after examining them under the approved auditing standards. The law requires the auditor to be independent and bars them from technical, administrative or advisory work in the company they audit except as the regulations specify (Article 20). That is why no firm can “stamp” statements it has not examined, and a stamp from an unlicensed office has no value.
The bodies that usually ask for this: banks and finance companies when you apply for facilities; the Contractors Classification Agency, whose law makes financial statements the basis for assessing financial capability (Article 6 of the Contractors Classification Law) and whose regulations require the latest year’s statement of financial position and income statement to be certified by a licensed CPA; the Qawaem platform, where statements are filed within six months of the financial year-end (Article 17/2); the bodies that issue local content certificates; and government entities in larger tenders.
Your company may be exempt from the obligation to appoint an auditor (Article 19 exempts micro and small enterprises meeting two of three criteria: revenue not exceeding SAR 10 million, assets not exceeding SAR 10 million, and no more than 49 employees), but the exemption does not stop a bank or agency from requiring audited statements as a condition of financing or classification.
What to do now
- Establish exactly which report is required: a full audit, a review, or agreed-upon procedures; for which year; and under which framework (full IFRS or the SME standard). Getting the request in writing saves weeks.
- Close the financial year before the audit starts: a final trial balance, bank reconciliations, an inventory count, the fixed asset register and provisions. The auditor examines finished statements; they do not prepare them for you.
- Assemble the supporting documents: official bank statements, contracts, sales and purchase invoices, zakat and tax returns, and customer and supplier confirmations.
- Budget the time realistically: a first audit takes weeks, not days, depending on the size of the business and the quality of the records, so start well before the requesting body’s deadline.
- Check the auditor’s licence in the SOCPA register before engaging them; reports from unlicensed offices are rejected.
- Do not ask for a signature on statements you prepared yourself: an auditor who follows the standards does not sign without examination, and a report issued without real work exposes you to liability before the requesting body.
How we help
- Auditing the financial statements and issuing the report as a firm licensed by SOCPA, within our external audit service.
- A review or agreed-upon procedures where that is what the requesting body requires, with a report that matches the wording of the request.
- The financial capability file for contractor classification with certified statements and the required ratios, within our contractor classification service.
- Closing the books and preparing the statements if they are not ready, arranged in a way that preserves the independence of the audit.
- Filing the statements on the Qawaem platform once certified, together with the related general assembly obligations.
Frequently asked questions
My company is exempt from appointing an auditor. Can the bank still require certified statements?
Yes. The exemption in Article 19 concerns only the obligation to appoint; a bank or government body sets whatever conditions it needs for its decision, and you can commission a voluntary audit to meet them.
What is the difference between “certified”, “audited” and “attested”?
In practice they all mean a licensed auditor’s report on the statements. What matters is the type of report required (audit or review) and the licence of the person issuing it.
How long does an audit of the financial statements take?
Weeks, depending on the size of the business, the number of accounts, the quality of the records and how quickly documents are provided; the more closed and reconciled the books, the shorter it is.
Do these bodies accept statements for a previous year?
Contractor classification requires the latest year’s statements, and banks usually ask for the latest certified statements plus recent interim figures. Ask the requesting body which period it needs before you start.
Related detailed guides
The requesting body’s deadline does not wait for the books to be finished. Send us the request and your latest trial balance, and we will set out the route and the timeline the same day.