Introduction
The audit process is designed to ensure that there are no material misrepresentations in the financial statements. Therefore, there are a number of techniques that are used in this regard.
Predominantly on grounds of ensuring that there is accuracy in maintaining and preparing the financial statements for the relevant stakeholders.
Cross Footing is one such technique in accounting that is used in order to verify and subsequently validate the mathematical accuracy of the given transactions so that there are no errors in judgment.
Definition
A cross foot is referred to as a summarization of the column on totals in a particular ledger, to ensure that there are no arithmetic errors in the computation of relevant totals.
In this regard, it is also important to realize the fact that all the relevant columns need to be added and then matched with the grand total figure in order to completely and entirely make sure of the fact that there have been no calculation errors in this process.
Therefore, from the perspective of an auditor, this becomes an increasingly important factor because of the reason that it ensures that the reports have been prepared and subsequently summarized correctly.
This concept is also utilized in cases where there is a need to verify a newly-designed report to operate as expected manually.
Hence, cross footing mainly verifies that the automated totaling functions in the report are working, as they are expected.
Explanation
The underlying reason for carrying our cross-fit is based on the underlying design of the excel workbooks that are followed in the general organizational pattern. For example, there is a list of all the subsequent expenses, which are listed and totaled.
By default, users of the financial statements assume the information that is provided, in terms of total, and summation, to be true, and therefore, they never personally add up all the relevant figures themselves.
However, the auditor is required to ensure that he has proper clarity about the additions that take place within these columns, to ensure that there is no error, intentional, or unintentional in computing the relevant total.
This is his responsibility because auditors are entrusted with overseeing that the preparation of financial statements is a reflection of complete disclosure of all the relevant entries during a financial year.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be seen that the auditors mainly rely on Cross Foot because of the fact that they have to adopt the principles of professional skepticism in order to rectify any mathematical error that might exist in the financial statements.
They are supposed to display skeptical behavior pertaining to gathering reasonable evidence that all the information that has been included in the lists and columns, subsequently adds up to the grand total.
This way of double-checking ensures that no user of the financial statement is able to delete or subsequently overwrite a dependent formula erroneously. This involves having to visually catch the relevant discrepancy, in order to fix the financial statements.
