Related Services to Auditing
Additionally, audit services, auditors offer other services. These can be categorized as:
Assurance engagements:
• Audits
• Reviews
Non-assurance Engagements:
• Agreed upon Procedures
• Compilations
Reviews:
The purpose of review of financial statements is to allow an auditor to state whether, on the basis of process which do not give all the evidence which would be needed in an audit, anything has come to the auditor’s attention which causes the auditor to consider that the financial statements are not ready, in all material respects, in accordance with a recognized financial reporting framework. The similar objective exerts to the review of financial or other information organized in accordance with suitable criteria.
The review includes query and analytical process that are designed to review the consistency of an assertion which is the responsibility of one party for use by the other. Whereas a review includes the application of audit skills and methods and the gathering of evidence, it does not ordinarily involve an assessment of accounting and internal control systems, tests of records and of responses to queries by acquiring corroborating evidence via observation, inspection, confirmation and computation, that are process ordinarily performed throughout an audit.
However the auditor tries to become aware of all important matters, the process of a review make the attainment of this objective less possible than in an audit engagement, therefore the level of assurance given in a review report is respectively less than that specified in an audit report.
Agreed-upon Procedures:
In an engagement to execute agreed-upon process, an auditor is engaged to take out that process of an audit nature to which the auditor and the entity and any suitable third party agreed and to report on realistic findings. The receiver of the report must form their own conclusions from the report by the auditor. The report is limited to those parties that have agreed to the procedures to be performed as others, naive of the causes for the process, might misinterpret the outcomes.
Compilations:
In a compilation engagement, the accountant is busy to employ accounting proficiency as opposed to auditing expertise to gather, categorize and summarize financial information. This ordinarily entails decreasing detailed data to a convenient and understandable form without need to test the assertions underlying that information. The process used are not designed and do not allow the accountant to state any assurance on the financial information. Though, users of the compiled financial information derive some advantage as an outcome of the accountant’s involvement since the service has been performed with due professional talent and care.