Audit 15 Summary

Audit Standard #15 Summary

LaWaylon Brown

Audit standard #15 explains what audit evidence is and tell what the requirements are regarding planning and performing audit procedures to get sufficient audit evidence. Audit evidence is all the information, whether obtained from audit procedures or other sources, which is used by the auditor in arriving at the conclusions on which the auditor's opinion is based. Audit evidence consists of both information that supports and corroborates management's assertions regarding the financial statements or internal control over financial reporting and information that contradicts such assertions.

To obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence, the auditor must plan and perform audit procedures to provide basis for the opinion rendered. Sufficiency is the measure of the quantity of audit evidence. The quantity of audit evidence needed is affected by the following; Risk of material misstatement or the risk associated with the control. As the risk increases, the amount of evidence that the auditor should obtain also increases. For example, ordinarily more evidence is needed to respond to significant risks. Quality of the audit evidence obtained. As the quality of the evidence increases, the need for additional corroborating evidence decreases. Obtaining more of the same type of audit evidence, however, cannot compensate for the poor quality of that evidence.

The auditor is not expected to be an expert in document authentication. However, if conditions indicate that a document may not be authentic or that the terms in a document have been modified but that the modifications have not been disclosed to the auditor, the auditor should modify the planned audit procedures or perform additional audit procedures to respond to those conditions and should evaluate the effect, if any, on the other aspects of the audit. The relevance of audit evidence refers to its relationship to the assertion or to the objective of the control being...