In each of the situations, identify the elements of the fundamental principles that are most applicable. In addition, discuss what action(s) (if any) you believe auditors should take with respect to these issues. Be sure your response is comprehensive in identifying the principle and action.
Situation A:
An entity has contacted you about performing its audit engagement. You have not previously served a client in the entity’s industry, which has many industry-specific accounting issues that are both technical and complex.
Situation B:
An entity has entered into a number of lease agreements. Based on the requirements of GAAP, you believe that these obligations meet the criteria for being classified as capital leases; however, the entity has elected to treat these leases as operating leases providing full and complete disclosure of this treatment in the footnotes to the financial statements.
Because of a disagreement with its current auditors, an entity has contacted you about conducting its current-year audit. However, because the previous auditors have just recently resigned from the engagement, you have some questions as to whether an audit can be completed in to meet the entity’s deadlines for providing audited financial statements to a lender.
Based on the effectiveness of the entity’s internal control, you have assessed control risk at low levels and decided that a smaller number of customer accounts need to be confirmed.
An entity has contracted you about performing their audit engagement. This entity became aware of your firm because the husband of one of your partners is currently serving as the entity’s chief financial officer.
One or your clients is currently a potential defendant in several cases because o f the damage caused by one its products. Because this entity does not believe that it is likely to receive an unfavorable outcome from this litigation, it did not disclose the potential litigation in the footnotes accompanying their financial statements.
You are performing tests of the client’s controls over the processing of revenue transactions to determine whether these controls are operating effectively and can be relied upon to prevent or detect misstatements.
One of your supervisors has requested a number of clarifications based on her review of you work on an audit engagement. A subsequent meeting with her has resolved these clarifications, and you both have concluded that your work supports the opinion on the client’s financial statements.
