How often should we have an auditor do an audit?

What do your Bylaws say? We do ours every year.

If your governing documents don't require an audit each year, perhaps just having an audit every other year is wise, just to save costs? Maybe having accountants review (or whatever a review is that is not as comprehensive as an audit) the financial records in alternate years would save costs?

Isn't the point of an audit to catch issues--so as long as issues could still be caught in an audit every 2 years, wouldn't every 2 years suffice?

Our attorney said that if the bylaws are silent, he recommended a full audit every five years with a review of the books during the off years (to save money). If the full audit turns up any issues, you may wish to do the full audit more frequently until the issues have been corrected.

There are levels of audits and the cost will vary. A full blown audit could easily cost several thousands of dollars.

We're at the level just below needing an audit. We haven't had an audit since 2007 and some owners think it's way past time that we have another. It has been 13 years, 9 Treasurers, and 5 bookkeepers since that last audit. Several of us have suggested to the board that it's high time we had another. The board has said it doesn't want to have an audit because FS 720 doesn't require us to have one, our bylaws don't even contain the word "audit", and the cost would be higher than what we generally pay for the outside accountant's annual Reviewed Financial Statements.

As a 6-year member of our Finance Committee and someone who eyeballs the financials every month, I don't think there's anything seriously wrong here. None of the "red flags" you hear about are present. Nevertheless, 13 years seems like a long time and we're about to embark on 5 years of spending $300k a year out of reserves for scheduled projects. I'd like to start that 5-year spending plan with an audit just so we can rest easy at the start of that plan, and point back to the audit as a milestone of sorts in future years.

There's nothing the homeowners can do to force an audit and it appears as though we'll need a new board to commission one. Of course, the current board railroaded through an annual budget for next year already and there's no money in it for an audit.

Audits cost money.

If there haven't been issues identified in the audits, I would keep it every other year AND when a new treasurer is appointed.

If the audits have identified issues, then every year might be prudent.

Some states have laws mandating - Florida requires audited financials if HOA takes in more than 500K.

You've gotten some great advice, although you still haven't said why you feel an audit every year would be helpful. Were problems discovered by previous audits? If so, have they been resolved? If not, why not? It was also said there are different levels of audits - if there haven't been any problems, why not go with a lower level audit, then a full audit every 3-5 years or so?

Whatever you decide, don't let the cost be your own reason. It's ok to be mindful of the cost (this is why you should do some comparison shopping), but not doing things simply because "it's too expensive" has come back to bite many HOAs in the rear.