Scenario

You are a junior accountant assigned to an audit of a publicly traded company. The audit team lead wants you to prepare a briefing to address three topics that newer members of the board of directors want to understand better. The topics include assertions (management and auditor), variances, and obtaining evidence to reach reasonable assurance. The new board members expressed concerns that the audit engagement did not guarantee there is no fraud and wondered why the auditors are not responsible for the financial statements. Your task is to explain assertions, variances, and why reasonable assurance does not guarantee the absence of fraud.

Directions

Using the template in the What to Submit section, create an 8-slide PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes that covers the three topics of audit assertions, fraud, and reasonable assurance.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

1. Define the common management assertions.
2. Describe the typical auditor assertions.
3. Interpret which variances would be worth further investigation.
4. Determine how much evidence is needed for reasonable assurance.
5. Explain the process of determining the root causes of variances.
6. Explain the connection between fraud and reasonable assurance.