An audit associate is preparing an audit program for the audit of a clients allowance for doubtful accounts. To gather evidence in support of the valuation assertion, the associate included the following audit procedure in the audit program:

Confirm accounts receivable by sending positive confirmations to a sample of customer account balances.

Required

1. a. Evaluate the relevance of the procedure in addressing the valuation assertion.
2. b. Comment on the reliability of the evidence gathered using the procedure.