It sounds like one of the many parts of the Blade Runner mythos that causes your eyes to glaze over every time one of your friends brings it up. But in actuality, it’s part of the procedure for a financial audit.
Sometimes a company is required to submit its financial statements for an audit. In this process, an expert - usually a certified public accountant - reviews the company's books and makes a judgement about whether the financial statements meet certain standards.
This general process is known as the attest function. It's a somewhat fancy name for the main part of the audit procedure.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is a Comfort Letter?6 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is a comfort letter? S....See the smooth curves there is [An S letter appears]
that comforting okay okay comfort letter is a letter
this kind of letter written by an expert usually someone like an auditor or a tax [Expert appears with comfort letter]
attorney in one form or another who has done deep due diligence into a company
looked at myriad details and data and volume counts of plastic cubes in their
inventory and then they've looked at their distribution contracts
you know with truckers and retail stores and drone deliverers and then they've [Drone flying in the air]
looked at their bank accounts both the onshore ones and the offshore ones that
you know they don't really like to talk about and then about 87 ish other things
that all those people look at and then they write a letter like an actual
letter which is usually given to the Board of Directors or an acquirer or
the investigating party whoever that is and that letter states that what the
company says it has or does is in fact what it has or does which is a good [Man discussing comfort letters]
thing to know so this letter well it just gives comfort to everyone
the only challenge can be you know trying not to become too comfortable [Man working near a waterfall]
Up Next
What does it mean to die intestate, and have your estate go into probate? Whatever it means, it'd make a decent rhyme in a financial rap.
What is a Commitment Letter? A commitment letter is a document that is issued by a lender to a borrower pursuant to a full fledged loan agreement c...
What is Consent To Service Of Process? A Consent to Service of Process is basically a Power of Attorney type of relationship established between an...