A year-end questionnaire for note disclosures

How to collect the facts the notes need that no trial balance holds, such as commitments, sureties and later events, with one client questionnaire.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

A trial balance can tell you the balance on a loan. It cannot tell you that the loan is secured over the client's building, that the director has signed a personal surety for the overdraft, that the company committed to a new machine in December, or that a customer issued summons in March. Those facts belong in the notes, and the only source for them is the client.

Many firms collect them piecemeal: an e-mail here, a phone call there, a question at the sign-off meeting. This article sets out a better way: one questionnaire, sent as one request, reviewed properly, with gaps sent back and the answers flowing into the notes.

Disclosures that never come from the ledger

Typical facts the notes need that no ledger records:

Security and encumbrances: assets pledged for borrowings.
Sureties and bank guarantees: given by the company for others, or by directors for the company.
Capital commitments: contracts signed for assets not yet received.
Other contractual commitments not on the balance sheet.
Contingencies: legal claims, disputes, tax queries.
Events after the reporting period: anything significant since year end.
Related parties: relationships and transactions.
Going concern: forecasts, funding and support.
Directors and secretary: appointments and resignations.
Dividends declared after year end.

Achekam is candid about the gap. Its notes take their figures from the mapped trial balance, and facts the trial balance does not hold are left as "[to be completed]". Each of those markers is a question the client still has to answer.

Turning them into plain questions for the client

Clients do not think in disclosure headings. "Please provide details of contingent liabilities" gets a blank look; "Has anyone threatened to sue the company, or has the company threatened to sue anyone?" gets an answer. Write each question in the client's language, with a word on why it matters:

Has the company given any assets as security for a loan or overdraft? Please send the latest facility letter.
Have you or any other director signed a personal surety for the company's debts?
Has the company signed a contract to buy equipment, vehicles or property that had not been delivered by year end?
Is the company involved in any legal dispute, or has it received a letter of demand or a summons?
Has anything significant happened since year end: a big customer lost, a large order won, damage, theft, new borrowing?
Have any directors been appointed or resigned during the year or since?
Has the company declared a dividend since year end?

Send the questionnaire close to the date the statements will be approved, not at the start of the job. Answers given in the first week after year end say nothing about the months that follow, and the events question in particular needs to cover the whole period up to approval. Where the work runs long, send a short follow-up asking only whether anything has changed since the first answers.

Not every client needs every question. Decide what matters for this one: the IFRS Foundation's page on Practice Statement 2 describes non-mandatory guidance setting out a four-step process for making materiality judgements when preparing financial statements, a sound way to decide which disclosures a small client's set really needs.

Sending the questionnaire as one request from a template

In Achekam, staff can create, send and track requests to clients for documents, answers and confirmations in one RFI console, and reusable request templates live under RFI Templates. A standard year-end disclosure template, adapted for each client, saves rewriting the same questions every year.

The client opens the request from a personal e-mailed link without an Achekam account, and the firm can also require a one-time code sent to the client's e-mail. When sending, staff can ask AI to draft the covering e-mail; a person must read and send it, and it is recorded as AI-drafted.

Automatic reminders go every 3 days by default, up to 5 per request, and can be switched off. For clients who answer at the last minute, leave them on.

Reviewing answers and returning the gaps

Answers need review, not just receipt. Staff can accept or reject each item a client sent and return the request saying what is still missing. Use that:

Reject vague answers such as "same as last year", and ask for confirmation of what last year said.
Reject "none" to the security question if the facility letter on file shows a bond, and say why.
Accept answers that come with evidence, and keep the evidence.

A returned request with a clear list of what is missing is a far better experience for the client than a string of follow-up calls, and it leaves a record of what was asked and when.

Filling the '[to be completed]' items in the notes

Once answers are accepted, work through the draft's markers one at a time. For each, find the answer, write the disclosure and test it against any figure it touches: a capital commitment against the asset register, security against the loans note, an event after year end against the going concern assessment.

The questionnaire and the related-party request often travel together; gathering related party disclosures from the client covers the related-party questions in detail, and monthly bookkeeping requests shows the same tools at work through the year.

By the time the partner reads the set, no marker should remain, and every disclosure should trace back to a client answer on file.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.