Users Demand for Assurance and Audit Services
1. Remoteness from the entity
2. Incentives competing with those of entity’s manager or provider of information
3. Accounting complexity and complex exchange transactions
4. Need for reliable information on which to base decisions
Terms
Assurance engagement is an engagement in which a professional accountant in public practice
expresses a conclusion designed to enhance the degree of confidence of the intended users other than
the responsible party about the outcome of the evaluation or measurement of a subject matter against
criteria. (IFAC)
Auditing is a systematic process by which a competent, independent person objectively obtains and
devaluates 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 user. (AAA)
Financial statement audit engagement. A reasonable assurance engagement in which a professional
accountant in public practice expresses an opinion whether financial statements are prepared in all
material respects in accordance with an identified financial reporting framework, such as an
engagement conducted in accordance with International Standards on Auditing. (IFAC)
Attestation services – services provided by an independent accountant to provide assurance as to the
reliability on a subject matter or an assertion about a subject mater or an assertion about a subject
matter such as the examination or audit of a historical financial statement. (Cabrera)
