Financial or Accounting Audit’s

financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion. The audit opinion is intended to provide reasonable assurance that the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, and/or give a true and fair view in accordance with the financial reporting framework. The purpose of an audit is to enhance the degree of confidence of intended users in the financial statements.

Financial audits are typically performed by firms of practicing accountants who are experts in financial reporting. The financial audit is one of many assurance functions provided by accounting firms. Many organizations separately employ or hire internal auditors, who do not attest to financial reports but focus mainly on the internal controls of the organization. External auditors may choose to place limited reliance on the work of internal auditors.

Internationally, the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) issued by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) is considered as the benchmark for audit process. Almost all jurisdictions require auditors to follow the ISA or a local variation of the ISA.

Purpose

Financial audits exist to add credibility to the implied assertion by an organization’s management that its financial statements fairly represent the organization’s position and performance to the firm’s stakeholders. The principal stakeholders of a company are typically its shareholders, but other parties such as tax authorities, banks, regulators, suppliers, customers and employees may also have an interest in ensuring that the financial statements are accurate. The audit is designed to increase the possibility that a material misstatement is detected by audit procedures. A misstatement is defined as false or missing information, whether caused by fraud (including deliberate misstatement) or error. “Material” is very broadly defined as being large enough or important enough to cause stakeholders to alter their decisions. Audits exist because they add value through easing the cost of information asymmetry, not because they are required by law (note: audits are obligatory in many EU-member states).

Stages of an audit

A financial audit is performed before the release of the financial statements (typically on an annual basis), and will overlap the year-end (the date which the financial statements relate to).

The following are the stages of a typical audit:

Planning and risk assessment

Timing: before year-end

Purpose:

  • To understand the business of the company and the environment in which it operates.
    • What should auditors understand?[1]
      • The relevant industry, regulatory, and other external factors including the applicable financial reporting framework
      • The nature of the entity
      • The entity’s selection and application of accounting policies
      • The entity’s objectives and strategies, and the related business risks that may result in material misstatement of the financial statements
      • The measurement and review of the entity’s financial performance
      • Internal control relevant to the audit
  • To determine the major audit risks (i.e. the chance that the auditor will issue the wrong opinion). For example, if sales representatives stand to gain bonuses based on their sales, and they account for the sales they generate, they have both the incentive and the ability to overstate their sales figures, thus leading to overstated revenue. In response, the auditor would typically plan to increase the rigour of their procedures for checking the sales figures.

Internal controls testing

Timing: before and/or after year-end

Purpose:

  • To assess the operating effectiveness of internal controls (e.g. authorisation of transactions, account reconciliations,segregation of duties) including IT General Controls. If internal controls are assessed as effective, this will reduce (but not entirely eliminate) the amount of ‘substantive’ work the auditor needs to do (see below).

Notes:

  • In some cases an auditor may not perform any internal controls testing, because he/she does not expect internal controls to be reliable. When no internal controls testing is performed, the audit is said to follow a substantive approach.
  • This test determines the amount of work to be performed i.e. substantive testing or test of details.[citation needed]

Substantive procedures

Timing: after year-end (see note regarding hard/fast close below)

Purpose:

  • to collect audit evidence that the management assertions (actual figures and disclosures) made in the Financial Statements are reliable and in accordance with required standards and legislation.

Methods:

  • where internal controls are strong, auditors typically rely more on Substantive Analytical Procedures (the comparison of sets of financial information, and financial with non-financial information, to see if the numbers ‘make sense’ and that unexpected movements can be explained)
  • where internal controls are weak, auditors typically rely more on Substantive Tests of Detail (selecting a sample of items from the major account balances, and finding hard evidence (e.g. invoices, bank statements) for those items)

Notes:

  • Some audits involve a ‘hard close’ or ‘fast close’ whereby certain substantive procedures can be performed before year-end. For example, if the year-end is 31 December, the hard close may provide the auditors with figures as at 30 November. The auditors would audit income/expense movements between 1 January and 30 November, so that after year end, it is only necessary for them to audit the December income/expense movements and the 31st December balance sheet. In some countries and accountancy firms these are known as ‘rollforward’ procedures.

Finalization

Timing: at the end of the audit

Purpose:

  • To compile a report to management regarding any important matters that came to the auditor’s attention during performance of the audit,
  • To evaluate and review the audit evidence obtained, ensuring sufficient appropriate evidence was obtained for every material assertion and
  • To consider the type of audit opinion that should be reported based on the audit evidence obtained.

Commercial relationships versus objectivity

One of the major issues faced by private auditing firms is the need to provide independent auditing services while maintaining a business relationship with the audited company.

The auditing firm’s responsibility to check and confirm the reliability of financial statements may be limited by pressure from the audited company, who pays the auditing firm for the service. The auditing firm’s need to maintain a viable business through auditing revenue may be weighed against its duty to examine and verify the accuracy, relevancy, and completeness of the company’s financial statements.

Numerous proposals are made to revise the current system to provide better economic incentives to auditors to perform the auditing function without having their commercial interests compromised by client relationships. Examples are more direct incentive compensation awards and financial statement insurance approaches. See, respectively, Incentive Systems to Promote Capital Market Gatekeeper Effectiveness and Financial Statement Insurance.