Introduction
The audit is considered a very important step that helps develop a much-needed trust in the market. It helps to establish that there are no material misstatements in the company’s financial statements, and the company is free and fair from all types of fraud.
In this regard, it is highly important to ensure that auditors are able to carry out their tasks in a responsible manner so that users of financial statements can actually rely on the audit statements that these auditors present.
In order to achieve the desired level of accuracy while conducting the audit, auditors are supposed to design their audit procedures that reflect professional skepticism and present a trajectory regarding the key indicators that need to be addressed during the course of the audit.
What is the Importance of Audit Procedures?
Audit procedures are steps carried out by the auditors across the scope of the audit to plan and execute the audit process carefully.
They can be defined as the processes, techniques, and methods used for auditors to obtain the necessary evidence, which enables them to make conclusions based on the respective audit objectives to express their opinion properly. They mainly include components like vouching, tracing, observation, an inspection of intangible assets, and usage of subsequent analytical procedures.
There are mainly five types of audit procedures, and their importance is respective to the assertion they are catering to. Speaking of Analytical Audit Procedures, it can be seen that it is basically the procedure that is carried out in order to assess and ascertain the degree of unusual transactions or events that are required in the basic audit process for a better understanding.
This is very important for the overall audit process because it directly impacts the underlying ability of the auditor to determine the nature of the transaction and the manner in which they are supposed to go around it when conducting the audit itself.
Therefore, the designed audit procedures help set a required pathway for the audit process so that auditors can have a set trajectory that can help them effectively execute the overall audit process.
However, for this to be considered, it is increasingly important for audit assertions to be applied that correlate to the matter at hand, and are able to add substantial value to the company in this regard. Hence, audit procedures are mainly designed to specify the task that was conducted and the underlying reason behind which it was important to set this as an audit procedure.
Therefore, it becomes highly important to consider the fact that audit procedures help to justify whatever the auditor does across the course of the audit domain so that supervisors know the reason and rationale behind the audit being conducted in this regard. Lastly, it can also be noted that Audit Procedures are designed in order to help define a process flow according to which the overall audit is going to be executed.
In this regard, it is quite important to consider the fact that these procedures need to be set, preferably in chronological order, so that neither of the components across the course of the audit is missed out upon.
Hence, audit procedures are important for internal quality controls of the audit process, too, since they point out any errors that might otherwise exist, which can be subsequently added later on. In the same manner, when the audit process begins, auditors know how to go around it in order to get the best results.
Conclusion
Therefore, there is no doubt to the fact that designing and setting up audit procedures tend to be one of the most important processes in executing the required tasks at hand. Hence, this should be stressed to facilitate a smoother, more relevant audit process, which can help the auditors gather proper data based on which they can make decisions accordingly.
In the same manner, it is also highly important to understand that audit procedure vary highly from company to company, and therefore, when designing these procedures, it is important to create different strategies depending on the nature of the company and the way they conduct business. This is something that needs to be accounted for in order to extrapolate the best possible results, that can deliver the required KPIs for the company.
