Glossary
Audit Committee Liaison
An audit committee liaison is the finance lead who prepares a public company’s quarterly and annual numbers, presents them to the board’s audit committee, and manages the back-and-forth between that committee and the external auditor. It is the person who makes sure the committee gets clean statements, clear answers, and no surprises before a filing goes out. At Treewalk, this role sits inside our Office of the CFO work: we act as the fractional CFO who owns the audit committee relationship for listed companies that do not carry a full-time finance department.
What it actually is
The audit committee is a subset of the board of directors charged with overseeing financial reporting and the external audit. A liaison is the finance-side counterpart who feeds that committee what it needs to do its job.
In practice, the liaison does four things:
- Prepares the interim and annual financial statements plus supporting working papers.
- Presents results at the quarterly or annual audit committee meeting and fields questions.
- Drafts the board and audit committee resolutions, along with the CEO and CFO certificates, that support each filing.
- Coordinates with the external auditor so the committee sees a reconciled, review-ready package.
One point matters here: Treewalk does not perform audits. We prepare the statements and liaise with the independent audit firm. The auditor stays independent, the committee stays in charge, and we sit between them making the process move.
Who hires us for this
Most companies that ask us for this are venture-stage issuers on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) or the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE). They have real reporting obligations but not enough finance headcount to staff a controller, a reporting manager, and a CFO who can face an audit committee.
We have filled that gap across mining, technology, healthcare, cannabis, and financial services issuers. On one psychedelic-medicine issuer that listed on the TSXV through a qualifying transaction, our team acted as CFO, prepared the quarterly financial statements and Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), presented at audit committee meetings, and coordinated the quarterly reviews and annual audit with the external audit firm.
If you are a director, a CEO without a CFO, or a controller who suddenly has a listing, this is the seat we fill.
How we approach it at Treewalk
We treat the audit committee as a client, not an audience. That changes how we prepare.
Before a meeting, we hand the committee a package that reconciles to the penny, flags every judgment call, and states the accounting position we took and why. We prepare the CEO and CFO certificates and the audit committee resolutions in-house so the filing sequence does not stall. When the external auditor raises a point, we run it down rather than passing it back to a busy board.
The fastest way to lose an audit committee’s trust is to walk in with a number you cannot explain. We would rather over-prepare the one estimate that will get questioned than present a tidy deck that falls apart under a single follow-up.
Because our CFOs have signed public company certifications themselves, they know which line the committee will circle before it does. That is the difference between a liaison who forwards email and one who owns the outcome.
What this is NOT
An audit committee liaison is not the auditor. The external audit firm gives the opinion; we prepare what it audits and reviews. Keeping that line clean is what protects the auditor’s independence and the committee’s oversight role.
It is also not corporate secretarial work, though the two overlap. Minute books and share registers are governance records. The liaison role is about the financial reporting that flows to the committee: the statements, the MD&A, the certificates, and the auditor coordination behind them.
Frequently asked questions
Is an audit committee liaison the same as a fractional CFO?
It is one part of the fractional CFO role, not a separate hire. When Treewalk provides an Office of the CFO service to a listed company, owning the audit committee relationship comes with it: preparing the numbers, presenting them, and managing the auditor coordination.
Does Treewalk audit our financial statements?
No. Treewalk does not provide audit or attest services. We prepare your statements, working papers, MD&A, and filing documents, then liaise with your independent external auditor through the quarterly reviews and the annual audit.
We already have a bookkeeper. Do we still need this?
Usually yes, if you are a reporting issuer. Bookkeeping records transactions. An audit committee liaison prepares IFRS statements, faces the committee, drafts the certificates and resolutions, and coordinates the audit. Those are different jobs at a different level.
How is this different from a large national firm?
A national firm assigns you a rotating team and a fixed calendar. We assign a CFO who signs the certifications and stays in the seat across quarters, so the committee talks to the same person who prepared the numbers. Our team includes 40+ CPAs, and public company reporting is one of our largest practices.
Which reporting standard applies to our filings?
For Canadian-listed public companies, that is almost always IFRS. Our team prepares interim and annual statements under IFRS and, where a company reports into the United States, has handled US GAAP as well.
Where to next
If you are a listed issuer weighing whether to bring in a fractional CFO for audit committee support, that is the right place to start. From there, see how we handle MD&A preparation, the SEDAR+ filing support that follows each committee sign-off, and IFRS financial statement preparation that feeds the whole cycle. To talk it through, email Alex McAulay through our contact page.
