Reporting on the Annual Information Return for the Agency for Co-operative Housing

Practitioners who provide services to clients with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (“CMHC”) operating agreements are likely aware of the Agency for Co-operative Housing (the “Agency”). The Agency is the administrator of federal co-operative housing program and operates under contract with CMHC in several provinces, including British Columbia.

This link will take you to the Agency’s website.

Annual Information Return

The Agency regularly requests auditors to complete an Annual Information Return (“AIR”).  The purpose of the AIR is for the Agency to collect financial data to risk rate housing co-operatives and to monitor their compliance with their CMHC operating agreements. The AIR is due four months after the co-ops fiscal year and summarises the information in the financial statements in a standardized format. This allows the Agency to conduct, on an electronic basis, various tests to determine the degree of financial risk a co-op represents.

A downloadable Q&A about the AIR for auditors is available on the Agency’s website.

Reporting on the AIR

The Agency has made significant changes to the AIR, which on a professional standards note this now means that there are two engagements (financial statement audit or review and the CSRS 4460 report on supplementary matters arising from an audit or a review engagement, rather than three, embedded into the AIR reporting. We would like to reminder practitioners that the engagement letter and representation letter can be modified to include both of these engagements.

For those practitioners using the Professional Engagement Guide resources the engagement letter template includes the following wording which can be modified to the particulars of your engagement. The representation letter, of course, is modified for each engagement to request the necessary representations.

The Agency provides a sample accountant’s report under CSRS 4460, however, practitioners should ensure that any sample report provided to them complies with the Appendix 1 report illustration in the CSRS 4460 standard. Practitioners should be mindful that in completing the CSRS 4460 engagement that they ensure they are meeting the performance and documentation requirements of CSRS 4460 and their own firm policies and procedures.