Question: Special air service No. 31, Evidential affair, identifies five direction averments that underlie a set of fiscal statements. Which of these averments should hold been of most concern to Price Waterhouse sing the big period-ending accommodations AMRE recorded during the 4th one-fourth of financial 1989?
AMRE ‘s fourth-quarter write-downs were big accommodations accepted by Price Waterhouse before publishing the unqualified sentiment on the 1989 fiscal statements. These write-downs where fabricated assets that were written-off as losingss or disbursals in effort to stop the deceitful activities that had been taking topographic point.
SAS No. 31 on evidentiary affair obtained from an hearer provides a greater confidence of dependability than from an internal beginning. The hearer is an independent and indifferent aggregator of the evidentiary affair versus an internal beginning that may non be. There are five direction averments that underlie a set of fiscal statements. The hearers must hold grounds to back up the information in the fiscal statements that supports the being or happening, completeness, rights and duties, rating or allotment, and presentation and revelation.The evidentiary affair is obtained through review, observation, inquires and verifications. The step of the cogency of such grounds for audit is the hearer ‘s judgement. The relevancy, objectiveness, seasonableness, and the being of the evidentiary affair lead to the hearer ‘s decisions. This evidentiary affair is the underlying informations for the hearer to do their determinations.
The first averment about being or happening relates to the confirmation of the assets and liabilities exist at a given day of the month. They verify that the minutess have for the assets and liabilities have been recorded during the right period. An illustration is the stock lists included in the balance sheet need to be verified by detecting the physical stock list counts. The records need to be reviewed for the stock list, production, and buying. This being averment should hold been of most concern to the Price Waterhouse hearers. Since there was a big period-ending accommodation being done by AMRE, the hearers should hold foremost done an being averment to verify assets exist. The assets being written off should hold been physically verified which should hold shown that they were fabricated. Given that the assets being written-off were fabricated and the hearers did n’t verify the being of these assets, the fraud was non discovered during the audit.
Assertions about completeness relate to the confirmation of all the minutess and histories are right represented in the fiscal statements. An illustration is that the stock list measures need to include all merchandises, stuffs and supplies. The measures owned by the company that are in theodolite or stored at outside locations need to be included. This averment applies for the hearers in the AMRE instance but should non hold been of most concern. The hearers could hold verified all of the minutess and histories are in the fiscal statements but the issue in the AMRE instance was that there were fabricated assets written-off. Verifying the minutess and histories being in the fiscal statements may non hold uncovered this fraud.
Assertions about rights and duties relate to the confirmation that the assets are owned by the company or that have the rights to the plus. Similarly, it verifies that the liabilities are duties of the company. Hearers need to analyze the seller bills, cargo understandings, and contracts. This averment should non the highest concern for the hearers but it does use. The year-end write-downs should hold been verified that the AMRE had rights to the plus by verifying the bills. This may hold uncovered that the assets were fabricated.
Assertions about rating or allotment relate to the confirmation that the assets, liability, equity, gross, and disbursals have been included in the fiscal statement with the right sums. An illustration is that the stock lists must be stated at the lower of cost or market. Hearers besides need to reexamine the direct labour and standard operating expense rates. They need to reexamine the stock list turnover and expression at industry tendencies. This averment should non hold been of the most concern to the hearers in this instance but is an of import 1. If the hearers would hold done a rating averments to verify that the assets were included in the fiscal statements were the right sum, they should hold under covered that they were falsely stated or fabricated. I believe that the being averment is of most concern but this averment would be the following most of import concern related to the yearend accommodations.
Assertions about presentation and revelation relate to the confirmation that the constituents of the fiscal statements are decently classified, described, and disclosed. Hearers need to compare the revelations in the fiscal statements to the demands of GAAP. This averment was non an issue in the AMRE instance. There was no reference of issues found with the fiscal statements being decently classified, described or disclosed.
In the AMRE instance, Price Waterhouse hearers did n’t use any of these scrutinizing processs to reexamine the big losingss from the riddance of the Decks divisions. Alternatively, they accepted the client ‘s accounts for these write-downs. The staff hearer inquired why the big figure of unset leads was being dropped. The response from the AMRE comptroller was that the unset leads had been improperly recorded. Given this, the staff hearer did n’t ask any farther and concluded that it was an stray incident. A cardinal factor that influenced the hearers was their former co-worker being the CFO. The hearers should hold followed the auditing processs in understanding these big write-downs and should non hold been changed their auditing methods because they knew the CFO.
In decision, the being or happening averment should hold been of most concern to the AMRE hearers Price Waterhouse sing the big period-ending accommodations recorded during the 4th one-fourth of the financial twelvemonth 1989. The rating or allotment averment would be the following highest concern because it relates to the confirmation that the assets and disbursals have been included in the fiscal statement with the right sums. But the being averment relates to the confirmation of the assets and liabilities exist at a given day of the month. If the hearers would hold followed this, they should hold found that fabricated assets that were written-off did non be.
Mentions
-
Contemporary Auditing Real Issues & A ; Cases by Michael Knapp
-
Auditing Management Assertions: The Impact of SAS No. 106 by Deborah Archambeault at hypertext transfer protocol: //www.tncpa.org/Journal/articles/Auditing_Management_Assertions.pdf