Clarified Statements On Auditing Standards

Generally accepted accounting principles are specific rules for accounting for transactions occurring in a business enterprise.

This programme accentuates the enhancement of the CA (SA) professional by persistently developing the standards governing the CA (SA) profession. The programme also focuses on legal and corporate governance; which aim at aligning social and economical standards; secures that the CA (SA) profession is accountable and affiliated with the interest of individuals; corporations and the society (South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, 2014). These regulations also safeguard the use of the accounting standards, as will be inspected in the succeeding

In 1973 the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was established to set the financial accounting standards in the United States of America for nongovernmental entities. These standards are collectively called U.S. Generally accepted Accounting Principles, or U.S. GAAP. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants acknowledge the authority of these standards (FASB, n.d). A “proven, independent due process” is used to collect the viewpoints of the financial statements prepares and users for the constant improvement of these standards. An Accounting Status Update(ASU) is not an authoritative source however documents the amendments to communicate the changes in the FASB Codification for a user to understand the reason and future of those changes (FASB, n.d).

Auditing is a systematic process of objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertions about economic actions and events to ascertain the degree of correspondence between those assertions and established criteria and communicating the results to interested users (Boynton & Johnson, 2006). In auditing there are many attributes that describes the auditor’s work. Elements of the Generally Accepted Auditing Standards are followed by auditors. The Generally Accepted Auditing Standards apply to financial, operational, and compliance audits. Auditing public traded companies has been effected by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Auditors have additional responsibilities because of

The Financial Accounting Standards Board goes through an elaborate information gathering process before issuing their standards. Firstly, an issue is identified and placed on the Board 's agenda by the Emerging Issues Task Force. Secondly, a task force of knowledgeable persons is appointed to advise the Board on the issue. Thirdly, the Board 's technical staff investigates the issue. Fourthly, a discussion memorandum on the issue is then written and distributed to interested parties. Fifthly, the

The act is an exhaustive piece of legislation that contains eleven major section and some of the most important titles outline requirements on auditor independence, analyst conflict of interests, corporate responsibility, enhanced financial disclosures, internal controls assessment, and corporate fraud accountability (Bainbridge, 2007). One of the main benefits of the legislation is to establish auditor independence requirements and rules for the prevention of conflicts of interest in particular by prohibiting auditing firms from offering other services. Prior to Sarbanes–Oxley, the auditing professionals were self-regulated and the decisions that controlled the industry, such as violation of ethical standards, were made largely by auditors themselves (Verschoor, 2012). In order to prevent conflict of interests, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act grants the PCAOB authority to oversee and regulate auditing firms, conduct investigations, and impose disciplinary sanctions against accounting firms (McDonough, 2004). Another provision of the Act is requiring senior executives to be personally accountable and responsible for the financial information reports by certifying that the information is correct.(Welch, 2006). A byproduct of the law implementation is a significant quality improvement on accounting practices;

Research: The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was founded in 1973 as a private and independent organization governed by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). The organization’s primary purpose is to establish the rules and standards of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for the interest of the public. (“Facts about FASB”) “Since its inception in 1973, the FASB has issued 168 Statements of Financial Accounting Standards and a series of concepts statements”. (Facts about FASB, n.d.) The FASB's mission is "to establish and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting for the guidance and education of the public,

JPMorgan Chase Bank is a publicly traded company and uses an external-independent auditing firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, to provide an annual audit. JPMorgan

Audit planning details change from client to client, no matter the complications presented. Each evolution of society’s business world prompts rule makers to update authoritative accounting standards in order to allow for changes, auditors are then responsible to certify their client’s financial reports adhere within compliance according to current authoritative standards. Many cite the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 as being legislation that has had the most profound impact on the auditing profession; incidentally, an auditor’s job is to certify financial statements are a fair representation of a company’s financial position, at a given point in time, using current acceptable standards. Society deems auditors as gatekeepers and expects the auditing profession to find and report fraud, prevent fraud, and make certain financial statements are true, fair representation of a company’s financial position. Even though the rules, regulations, and generally accepted accounting principles can sometimes be difficult to find and translate, the public expects auditors to prevent events such as those that sparked SOX. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) developed the Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) that became the authoritative source July 2009 (FASB, 2009). Perhaps the hardest impact auditors experience with FASB ASC is attempting to ascertain clients’ FASB ASC references in disclosures on financial statements; “management cannot delegate this function to the

The Auditing Standards Board has launched the Clarity Project (Lindberg & Seifert, 2011) which is an effort to make the U.S. Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (U.S. GAAS) easier to comprehend in the eyes of non-public businesses. “The Clarity Project will result in the first complete redrafting and recodification of U.S. GAAS since 1972” (Morris & Thomas, 2011, para. 2). Four of the most significant changes are: changing the format of the standards so they are more consistent and readable, the wording in the auditor’s report, group audit standards, and the authoritative status on the 10 generally accepted auditing standards (Morris & Thomas, 2011). The Clarity Project also includes the process of integrating the U.S. GAAS with International Standards on Auditing (ISA).

The FASB has the mission of create and improve the accounting standards and the financial reports by the nongovernmental organizations, offering useful information that allows investors and other users to make decisions. The implementation and improvement of the standards is made taking into consideration the opinion of all the parties interested and it is supervised by the Financial Accounting Foundation’s Board of Trustees. This process open to the public participation warranty the transparency into the standards-setting process. Therefore, the FASB issue a variety of reports requesting feedbacks on its standards setting activities. (FASB, Standard-setting process, n.d.)

International Standard on Auditing (ISAs) is defined as “professional standards that deal with the independent auditor’s responsibilities when conducting an audit of financial statements”. All these standards are issued by International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) through the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). The ISAs include requirements and objectives along with application and other explanatory material. The auditor must have knowledge about the whole text of an ISA, its application and other explanatory material to be aware of the objective and to apply the requirements.

After much research and time spent on understanding the inner working of Alchemy Inc., we have found some internal control weaknesses that could lead to potential fraud. Our audit procedures are designed to address internal control weaknesses and subsequent fraud risks in the most efficient and cost effective manner. We hope with our recommendation that Alchemy inc. will be able to minimize the risk of financial misstatement. We believe these concepts will have many positive impacts on the firm’s long-term

With the ASA 701 auditing standard investors are provided with information about the auditors respond about the crucial auditing matters, their deep vision about the crucial auditing matters and their greater level of the transparency towards their responsibilities in auditing the financials of the company. Investors are now at the safe side and their decision becomes more rationale rather than instinct.

1) This was the hardest question I delt with in this case, so I went to the basics: Accounting and Auditing in France. I came across the Supreme Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants(7) and the National Society of Auditors (CNCC). (8) After researching this I simply did a search on the individual websites for “recent developments”, and nothing major came up in regards to the individual organizations. However, on expert-comptables.fr, I came across a press release that was released in regards to the IASB and FASB giving an update to the Memorandum of Understanding. This press release shows how the IASB and the FASB have plans to commit to a common set of high quality standards. It also laid out