Exam 2: Auditors Professional Roles and Responsibilities

A prospectus is the information, usually including financial information, about a firm that accompanies any new issuance of shares in a regulated securities market.

Reliance on self-regulation of the accounting profession has changed as a result of its perceived failure to detect the problems leading to the corporate scandals of 2002/2003.

What is the difference between audit procedures and audit standards?

Control risk is the risk that an accounting firm's quality control standards will not be adequate.

All of the following are examples of assurance engagements except ________.

Alan Fallon was recently promoted to senior accountant. He was put in charge of the Mellow Markets audit because of his experience with other grocery clients. Mellow Markets has a small, but growing chain of natural food stores. This is the first year Mellow Markets has been audited. Because of its growth, Mellow needs additional capital. Mellow intends to take its audited financial statements to a bank to secure a loan. Alan has been assigned two inexperienced staff assistants for the audit. Because this is his first audit as a senior, he intends to bring the job in on budget. To save time, he gave the assistants the audit program for Happy Time Food Stores. He told his staff that this would make things go more quickly. He also told them that he could not spend much time with them at the client's place of business because "my time is billed out at such a high rate, we'll go right over budget." He did call them once a day from another audit on which he was working. The assistants told Alan that the audit program did not always match up with what they found at Mellow Markets. Alan responded, "Just cross out whatever is not relevant in the audit program and don't add anything-it will only make us go over the budget." When Alan came out near the end of fieldwork, one assistant communicated her concern that they had not attended the inventory counts at any of the out-of-town locations of Mellow Markets. The audit program had stipulated that inventory should be observed for in-town stores only. Happy Time had only one store not in town while Mellow Markets had three of their five stores in other cities. Alan told the assistant to get inventory sheets from the client for the other stores. He added, "Make sure that the inventory balance in the general ledger agrees with the total for all the inventory sheets." The next day, Alan reviewed all work papers and submitted the job for review by the manager. Required: A. The examination standards are outlined below. 1. The work should be adequately planned and properly executed using sufficient knowledge of the entity's business as a basis. If assistants are employed, they should be properly supervised. 2. A sufficient understanding of internal control should be obtained to plan the audit. When control risk is assessed below maximum, sufficient appropriate audit evidence should be obtained through tests of controls to support the assessment. 3. Sufficient appropriate audit evidence should be obtained, by such means as inspection, observation, enquiry, confirmation, computation, and analysis, to afford a reasonable basis to support the content of the report. A. Describe three GAAS examination standards. B. 1. The Mellow Markets audit is not in compliance with these standards. A proper audit program was not prepared. This, along with the emphasis on cutting time, means that it is also doubtful that a meaningful knowledge of the client's business was obtained. It appears that the planning portion of the first examination standard was clearly violated. The lack of time and attention the inexperienced staff received from Alan Fallon is indicative of a violation of the supervision part of the first examination standard. 2. There is no indication of any steps taken to understand, evaluate, or test the internal control of Mellow Markets. This is a violation of the second examination standard. 3. The third examination standard also seems to have been violated. First, the deficiencies in meeting the first two examination standards suggest that the auditors could not have obtained sufficient appropriate evidence. In addition, the failure to observe any of the inventory counts in other cities is an additional deficiency-particularly since Mellow is a new client. Finally, ensuring that the inventory sheets agree with the balance in the general ledger account is merely a first step in the audit of inventory. By itself it is not sufficient appropriate evidence. B. Do you believe that the Mellow Markets audit is in compliance with these standards? Explain.

The CPA Canada Handbook recommendations are a step-by-step list of procedures auditors have to complete for each engagement.

Because of the risk of material misstatement, an audit of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards should be planned and performed with an attitude of ________.

A standard unmodified audit report should be dated ________.

Appropriate audit evidence, to be reliable and relevant, must be quantitative, objective, and absolutely compelling.

What is a quality inspection?

The GAAS general standard relating to the audit of financial statements focuses on all of the following except ________.

Which of the following statements best explains an unmodified report opinion?

The reporting standards require that the auditor explicitly report on whether the financial statements ________.

An external auditor is conducting an audit of the financial statements of Camden Corporation. The external auditor is expected to ________.

A report giving conclusions about a firm's compliance with quality control standards is typical of which of the following?

An assurance engagement is one in which a CPA is engaged to ________.

Practice standards are a general set of standards intended to guide the audits of financial statements.

Several sources of GAAP consulted by an auditor are in conflict as to the application of an accounting principle. Which of the following should the auditor consider to be the most authoritative?

Three-Party Accountability includes all of the following parties except ________.