Why will an auditor more extensively test controls for the completeness assertion on
liability accounts than on asset accounts?
(a) The risk of unrecorded liabilities is greater than the risk of unrecorded assets.
(b) The completeness assertion is not applicable to asset accounts.
(c) The liabilities account balances presented in the financial statements tend to be more
complete than the asset accounts.
(d) The most likely type of misstatement for liabilities is overstatements.
Triad, Inc. sells body armor to various governments around the world. One of its major
customers was a country that was experiencing civil unrest throughout the past year.
Triad, Inc. had a very material account receivable from this country’s
military government at its fiscal year end on December 31.
Although it was temporarily kept a secret from the press, the military government was
overthrown in the last week of the calendar year and a new democratic government was
set up with an interim president. When elections were held in January, one of the
decisions made by the voters was to disavow any of the prior government’s debts to any
entities outside the country. Triad, Inc. management and the audit firm learn about these
events from news reports in January while the integrated audit engagement is in
process.
(a) How should these events affect Triad, Inc.’s financial statements? How should
they affect the financial statement audit report? Does this scenario affect the
auditor’s report on ICFR?
(b)Assume that the military government was overthrown in early January and Triad and
the auditor learned of it in February, when the audit was still in process.How does your
answer change?
(c) Assume that the military government was overthrown in March and that Triad and
the audit firm saw the news reports shortly after the 10K, including the audit report, was
filed with the SEC. How does your answer change?