Seacrest Services Inc. is proud to be affiliated with Quantum House of Palm Beach. 

Quantum House of Palm Beach provides a "caring place to call home" for families while their children are being treated for a critical illness or injury in Palm Beach County. Quantum House relieves the stress and financial hardship that are added to the trauma of illness and is the only facility of its kind between Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando.

 

Seacrest Services supports Quantum House financially and by volunteering at various events throughout the year. Most recently, several employees teamed with Quantum House to volunteer at The Honda Classic. Volunteers helped with concessions at the 16^th Green Snack Tent promoting the mission of the House. It was a fun event and donations collected went directly to Quantum House.

 

Seacrest Services also supported the 13^th Annual Paddy Mac's Shamrock Classic Golf Tournament held on April 2nd-3rd at PGA National Estates Course. Every dollar raised through the tournament went to Quantum House.

 

Paddy Mac's hosted an amazing lobster dinner for golfers and their guests. The evening featured live entertainment, delicious food and silent/live auctions. After 18 holes on the day of the tournament, golfers were invited back to Paddy Mac's for a delicious buffet lunch and the announcement of tournament awards.  

 

(Paul Licata, Dan Barrett, Mark Wade and Andy Jones)

 

For more information on Quantum House, please visit their website: http://www.quantumhouse.org/

  

Meet Steve Terzo- Director of Landscaping

  

Steve Terzo joined Seacrest Services in 2006 as Director of Landscaping, overseeing the operation of the landscape maintenance, design, installation, irrigation and pest control divisions. Previous to joining Seacrest, Steve owned his own landscape maintenance company in Broward County. With years of experience and a passion for the business, Seacrest's Landscape Division has grown exponentially under his direction. His main focus is customer service and maintaining the highest quality of work for our communities. Originally from Staten Island, NY, Steve relocated to South Florida 12 years ago and currently lives in Wellington.

Ask the Experts   

  

  

Q. We received two bids from different accounting firms for our Association's annual audit. One was for $5,000 and the other was for $1,500. Why is there such a big difference in price?

 

A. When offering bids to potential clients for services, a public accounting firm generally estimates the time commitment necessary to complete the services requested by the client. Once this estimate is derived the firm will them generate an audit fee based upon the firm's hourly rates. Therefore, a significantly lower bid means either (i) the firm has a lower hourly billing rate, which likely means less experienced individuals are working on the engagement, or (ii) the firm is spending less time on the engagement and sets its price accordingly. Either way, a significantly lower price should raise certain concerns when evaluating bids.

 

When a public accounting firm performs an audit, there are certain standards and procedures the firm must perform and follow in order for the audit to be completed in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America.

 

These standards, which all public accounting firms performing audits are supposed to follow, require the auditors to obtain an understanding of the Association and its environment, including its system of internal control, in order to assess the risk of material misstatement (which is the risk that the financial statements will contain a significant misstatement whether by error or by fraud). The auditor then uses their determined risk, amongst other factors, to determine the procedures and tests it will perform during the audit.

 

While all public accounting firms are not equal and perform audits in different ways, using different procedures, the Board of Directors, through their own inquiries and observations, should be able to ascertain how comprehensive an audit is being performed. As a Board member ask yourself certain questions, such as: did the auditor interview our Board of Directors? Did the auditor physically show up to our Association at any point during the audit? How much supporting documentation did the auditor request? Did the auditor review any invoices? Did the auditor perform any tests of our internal controls? If the answer to any of these questions is "no" there would be a substantial reduction in the estimated time necessary to perform the audit, which, in turn, would lead to lower audit fees.

 

 

Answered by:

Charles S Hafer, CPA

Hafer Company, LLC