What is Audit Evidence? Definition, Components, Nature and Types

Audit evidence role has grown many folds as investors and other stakeholders rely on audited financial statements to make investment decisions. Also, banks and financial institution rely heavily on the auditor’s opinion which is solely based on audit evidence that they come across during their audit work. Also, an audit Audit evidences: Definition, Types, Procedures, and Quality is conducted based on a sample of information during a finite period of time with finite resources at hand for the auditor which makes audit evidence even more indispensable to make an opinion. Examples of auditing evidence include bank accounts, management accounts, payrolls, bank statements, invoices, and receipts.

• Plus, what the tools tells you what to expect may not be what the auditor will ask of you during the actual audit.
• Audit evidence is the information auditors obtain in performing their audit work in order to form the basis of their opinion on financial statements.
• The auditor can leverage work done by an internal auditor and documented in work papers, so that only a sample of the work needs to be re-tested to verify.
• To be appropriate, audit evidence must be both relevant and reliable in providing support for the conclusions on which the auditor’s opinion is based.
• Observation, even done remotely, can ensure that a company has an air conditioning system capable of keeping their servers cool by checking the thermostat in the equipment room.

This standard explains what constitutes audit evidence and establishes requirements regarding designing and performing audit procedures to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence. Auditors need to perform suitable audit procedures in order to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence. Auditors’ judgment of which type of audit procedure to perform is very important in producing a good quality audit. Also, when the findings of the auditor are disputed, this evidence supports the opinion of the auditor.

Definition of Audit Evidence

Audit evidence is the information auditors obtain in performing their audit work in order to form the basis of their opinion on financial statements. In this case, auditors have responsibilities to gather sufficient appropriate evidence on which to base their audit opinion. Auditing involves an element of uncertainty as the facts and figures are checked based on sample data. In this audit, evidence plays an important part by making the audit team take appropriate actions which may include reconfirmation or modification of audit plan, changes to audit objective, or even termination of the audit if conditions require so. However, it is pertinent to note here that audit evidence is based on samples of available information and therefore involves a lot of uncertainty and anybody acting based on audit conclusion should keep this in mind before taking any action. Auditors should prepare audit procedures to confirms and verify the financial statements’ assertion as part of their materiality assessment in the financial statements.

This is due to the quality and quantity of audit evidence that auditors need to obtain will be heavily affected by the level of risk that auditors face when gathering the evidence. The formation of opinion by the auditor is based on sufficient and appropriate audit evidence, which are gathered by carrying out the Risk Assessment Procedure and audit procedures i.e. substantive procedure and compliance procedure. Auditing evidence is defined as a term to protect investors by promoting transparent, accurate, and independent audit reports. The auditing evidence supports and verifies the final information provided by management in the financial statements. Substantive procedures which include test of details and substantive analytical procedures are the procedures that auditors need to perform in order to detect material misstatements at the assertion level.

Components of Audit Evidence

In short, auditing evidence is meant to provide auditors with the information for them to make the judgment on whether or not financial statements are accurate and true. Company ABC has enlisted the auditing services of the accounting firm, Anderson Brothers, to have their financial statements from the fiscal year 2020 audited. The auditor begins working https://accounting-services.net/can-i-keep-cash-wrongly-put-in-my-bank/ on the audit and requests information regarding reported revenues and bank balances. To obtain accurate and reliable information, regarding revenues, the auditor requests sales receipts and invoices and a physical examination of inventory. Regarding bank balances, the auditor requests all of the bank statements of the company directly from ABC’s bank.

This assertion concerning the accuracy of the information disclosed in or noted to the financial statements. Another simple, basic and effective testing method involves an auditor’s observation of tasks, procedures and conditions. This testing method is most often used when there is no documentation of the operation of a control.