ETHICAL AUDITS

Interview with:

Tony SJÖLUND Head of International Desk https://edlundpartners.se/en/

What can you tell us about yourself, about your firm and about your team?

My name is Tony Sjölund. I am an authorized public accountant and partner at TGS Edlund & Partners, an audit and accounting firm in Sweden. I mainly work with auditing and advisory for small and medium-sized founderled companies and I am also responsible for our international department. I find great joy in working with clients in the SME segment as it gives an opportunity to work closely with the clients and entrepreneurs on issues that are important both to them as owners and to their businesses.

TGS Edlund & Partners was founded 10 years ago with the vision of developing and renewing the audit and advisory industry for small and medium-sized companies in Sweden. Our business consists of audit, tax, advisory, accounting and payroll services and the company has about 45 employees. We have a strong focus on advisory services and specialize in ownership changes, restructuring, capital issues and financial solutions. We are often advisors to sellers or buyers in ownership changes and transactions.

What kind of Audit services are offered by your firm?

We mainly perform standard financial statutory audits and other types of audit assignments, for example reviews of interim financial challenging task.information or sustainability reports, reviews according to special agreements or opinions that are needed according to the Swedish Companies Act, such as e.g. in the case of share issues, mergers, etc. We have the ambition that our audits and review assignments should provide something more to the clients besides the audit report or opinion. Since we get an insight into the company’s operations we can highlight risks and opportunities for improvement that we recognize in our reviews.

What does ethical auditing mean to you and how does it apply to your firm?

I think ethics is fundamental in the profession since the services we deliver are based on trust in the industry and in us as auditors and accountants. Integrity, objectivity, confidentiality etc. are parts of the professional practice and are also contained in the regulations and guidelines that we as auditors have to follow. It is also important for us that our clients do not act in ways that could be seen as unethical since that could lead to higher risks in our assignments, and also could risk affecting our brand.

Currently we do not have ethical audits as a specific service in the way that we, for example, review how well a company complies with their ethical guidelines. However, ethical issues are often touched upon in our financial audits and not least in the advisory services that we deliver. There is also a clear connection I think between ethics and sustainability matters that are increasingly important for our clients.

Could you describe the importance of ethical values to your firm? How would you assess them?

That the company and our employees have basic ethical values is very important to us and a bit of a hygiene factor. Partly because it is directly linked to the trust that our customers, potential customers and potential employees have in us, but it’s also an important part of our corporate culture and our brand. We want our employees to be proud to work at TGS Edlund & Partners.

What benefits does it bring to your business to focus the audit towards ethics?

Minimizing risk in the audit assignments is one part, we don´t want clients that for example operate in industries where risks for e.g. money laundering are higher. Another part is what I just mentioned, ethical values is an important part of our corporate culture and our brand.