Katherine Whipple of food has asked you and your team to meet with her concerning a possible attest engagement relating to the assertion that Food Queen has the lowest overall prices of all the groceries stores in the salt Lake area. Food Queen has just recently moved into the Salt Lake City area and is trying to establish a high-volume, profitable position. Katherine has suggested to you that she believes that while Food Queen certainly does not have the lowest price on all of the 25000 types of items it sells, on most any rational basis she believes that its prices are "on the whole lower than those of the competition. In thinking about this, you realize that to perform such an attestation engagement suitable criteria must be used to evaluate the subject matter. Katherine has also suggested to you that when the engagement is complete she will use the result as part of an advertising campaign in which the ads suggest that Food Queen has the "certified lowest overall costs" When you ask her what would happen if the engagement revealed that Food Queen didn't have the lowest prices , she suggested that she would simply not use the report and wait a month or two and have you perform another engagement when she had had time to bring her prices down even lower.

Discuss the following questions or issues as best as you can using the content of the material in chapter 20, your own research and to some extent. some chapter 19 material.

1. What would you consider as the Subject matter in this engagement?

2. Discuss the nature of the required assertion from management for an engagement such as this.

3. Are attestation engagement acceptable when the resulting report is to be used for advertising purposes?