Who signed the audit opinion for Benihana?
Benihana Franchise · 2024 FDDAnswer from 2024 FDD Document
Basis for Opinion
The Company's management is responsible for these financial statements. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company's financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) ("PCAOB") and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.
We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. As part of our audit we are required to obtain an understanding of internal control over financial reporting but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company's internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion.
Our audit included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.
/s/ Plante & Moran PLLC
We served as the Company's auditor from 2018 to 2021.
Boulder, Colorado
March 19, 2021
Source: Item 22 — CONTRACTS (FDD pages 73–74)
What This Means (2024 FDD)
According to Benihana's 2024 Franchise Disclosure Document, the audit opinion was signed by Plante & Moran PLLC. The document indicates that Plante & Moran PLLC served as Benihana's auditor from 2018 to 2021. The audit opinion is dated March 19, 2021, from Boulder, Colorado.
This information is relevant to prospective franchisees as it provides insight into the auditing firm that assessed Benihana's financial statements. Knowing the auditor can give franchisees a sense of the credibility and thoroughness of the financial review. It's worth noting that Plante & Moran PLLC has not been Benihana's auditor since 2021, so more current financial statements may be audited by a different firm.
For a prospective franchisee, it would be prudent to inquire about who currently audits Benihana's financial statements and to review the most recent audit opinion. Understanding the scope and basis of the audit, as described in the FDD, can also help a franchisee assess the reliability of the financial information provided by Benihana.