Auditing And Assurance Services

Auditors are trained to investigate beyond appearances to determine the underlying facts—in other words, to look beneath the surface. The recent financial crisis has made this skill even more crucial to the business community. As a result of this recent crisis and of the financial statement accounting scandals that occurred at the turn of the century, understanding the auditor’s responsibility related to fraud, maintaining a clear perspective, probing for details, and understanding the big picture are indispensable to effective auditing. The author team of Louwers, Ramsay, Sinason, Strawser, and Thibodeau has dedicated years of experience in the auditing field to this new edition of Auditing & Assurance Services, supplying the necessary investigative tools for future auditors.

Messier employs the new audit approach currently being used by auditing professionals. This new approach is a direct result of the demands of Sarbanes-Oxley, which has changed the way auditors do their jobs. The new auditing approach emphasizes understanding the entity (i.e., the organization or business being audited) and its environment (i.e. industry), and then assessing the business risks faced by the entity and how management controls those risks. This new audit process focuses on business processes instead of accounting cycles. This unique and innovative approach has been developed in response to changing market dynamics. The systematic approach, referred to in the subtitle of the text, reflects the early introduction of three basic concepts that underlie the audit process: materiality, audit risk, and evidence; this allows Messier to build upon this model in subsequent chapters. These are central to everything an auditor does and a unique feature of Messier. As such, this approach helps students develop auditor judgment, a vital skill in today's auditing environment.

As auditors, we are trained to investigate beyond appearances to determine the underlying facts—in other words, to look beneath the surface. From the Enron and WorldCom scandals of the early 2000s to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 to present-day issues and challenges related to significant estimation uncertainty, understanding the auditor’s responsibility related to fraud, maintaining a clear perspective, probing for details, and understanding the big picture are indispensable to effective auditing. With the availability of greater levels of qualitative and quantitative information (“big data”), the need for technical skills and challenges facing today’s auditor is greater than ever. The author team of Louwers, Blay, Sinason, Strawser, and Thibodeau has dedicated years of experience in the auditing field to this new edition of Auditing & Assurance Services, supplying the necessary investigative tools for future auditors.

Auditing and assurance service education has undergone dramatic change in at least three ways: (1) An awakening that practitioners have a comparative advantage in offering professional services that transcend the boundaries of financial statements; (2) An understanding that client strategies affect engagement risk; and (3) A transition away from first-person delivery by classroom instructors only and toward third-person discovery by students both within and outside of the classroom. Each has influenced the seventh edition. To transcend the boundaries of financial statements, Auditing and Assurance Services exposes students both to the demand for and the supply of the profession's flagship service, financial statement audits, and to the nature of the value-added assurance services decision makers demand in the information age.

"Includes coverage of international standards and global auditing issues, in addition to coverage of PCAOB Auditing Standards, the risk assessment SASs, the Sarbanes/Oxley Act, and Section 404 audits."

Auditing counts! With recent incidents at WorldCom, Enron, Xerox, Tyco, and other companies, auditing has never been so important. Auditing is perhaps our single best defense in ensuring the integrity of our financial reporting system. That's why this new Eighth Edition of Boynton and Johnson's Modern Auditing focuses on decision making and the critical role auditors play in providing assurance about the integrity of the financial reporting system. Known for its clear writing and accessibility, this text provides comprehensive and integrated coverage of current developments in the environment, standards, and methodology of auditing. Features * Real-world examples relate issues discussed in the chapter to ethics, audit decision making, and the integrity of the financial reporting system. * Focus on Audit Decisions sections highlight key factors that influence an auditor's decisions. * Includes discussion of the role of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) Auditing Standards, and a chapter feature highlights PCAOB standards that differ from Generally Accepted Auditing Standards for private companies. * Expanded case material related to the integrated audit case (Mt. Hood Furniture) provides a variety of databases that allow students to utilize generalized audit software (IDEA) to accomplish various audit tasks. Multiple databases allow the case to be reused with different data from term to term. * A flowchart style chapter preview begins each chapter. * Chapter summaries reinforce important audit decisions included in the chapter. * End-of-chapter material organized by audit decisions provides a clear link between audit decisions discussed in each chapter and the problem material.

This new edition is written with two major objectives: (1) to help students understand audit decision making and evidence accumulation, and (2) to reflect changes in the profession by integrating assurance and attestation services as well as risk issues. This 6th edition introduces two new tools that practitioners use to assess risk and to identify assurance service opportunities: Client Strategy Templates and Balanced Scorecards.