According to GAAS, the overall objective of a financial statement audit is: a. To enable the auditor to express an opinion as to whether the financial statements are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. to. To reduce audit risk to an acceptably tow level. c. To determine whether the nancial principles adopted by management in preparing the financial statements are acceptable. . To obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements taken as a whole are free from misstatement, whether due to fraud or error