About the practice

A Niigata desk for careful financial auditing

Aki Balance Review was founded to give mid-sized companies in 新潟県 an auditor who still visits the warehouse floor and reads the bank confirmation replies line by line.

Bright office interior with wooden desks used by the audit practice

Origin

The practice grew out of years spent on statutory audits for manufacturers along the Shinano basin and trading firms near Niigata Port. Clients kept asking for an auditor who understood local lending covenants and the rhythm of a March fiscal year-end—without routing every question through a distant metropolitan office.

We keep the firm intentionally small. Engagements are staffed so the person who plans the audit is also present for inventory observation and the closing meeting.

How we work

We favour paper and ledger evidence you can reconcile: bank statements, receiving logs, board minutes, and signed contracts. Interviews with process owners matter as much as samples. When something is unclear, we say so in the management letter rather than burying it in jargon.

Japanese GAAP is our default reporting framework. When a parent company requires additional schedules under another framework, we agree the extra procedures in the engagement letter before fieldwork begins.

People

Aki Nakamura leads planning and reporting. Her background is in statutory audits of privately held manufacturers and cooperatives. She reviews every draft opinion and meets the finance director at the start and end of each annual engagement.

Kenji Saito coordinates fieldwork and confirmation logistics. He previously supervised inventory counts for wholesale clients and now trains junior staff on cut-off testing around port shipments.

Values in practice

  • Independence from bookkeeping and tax preparation for the same entity
  • Timetables that respect confirmation lag, not optimistic promises
  • Findings written for managers who must act on them

Community

We serve companies based in Niigata Prefecture and, by arrangement, nearby subsidiaries that share a finance team. We do not chase national tenders that would dilute attention from existing year-end commitments.

Visit or write

Our office is at 710 Kacey Radial, 西岡町, 新潟県, Japan. Scoping conversations are available by appointment.

Contact the practice