Evidence from audit research shows that the anchoring and adjustment heuristic occurs when auditors begin their audit of a financial statement account assertions by first obtaining the unaudited ending balances from the client's management. Consider the following example of this situation.

The auditor receives the unaudited ending balance of accounts receivable of \(\$ 1\) million and begins with the belief that the actual balance likely is between \(\$ 800,000\) and \(\$ 1.2\) million. However, the actual balance should have been \(\$ 250,000\). Thus, the auditor has anchored on \(\$ 1\) million and fails to appropriately consider the likelihood that the actual balance should be much, much lower.

Provide suggestions based on the approach to auditing discussed in this textbook for how an auditor might reduce the likelihood of being placed in this situation.