An audit is merely the examination and commenting on the objects confirmed. A financial audit entails a review of the books of accounts as well as other pertinent data. This will provide the auditor with the information he needs to determine whether the accounts have been properly managed and whether they have met the relevant statutory, accounting, or financial reporting, and auditing standards.
A financial statement audit is an independent examination of the organization’s financial statements. The primary goal of a financial statement audit is to provide independent or third-party assurance that management has presented a “true and fair” assessment of a company’s financial performance in its financial statements.
The auditor’s report attesting to the fairness of the financial statements and related disclosures is the result of this examination. When the financial statements are distributed to the intended receivers or stakeholders, the auditor’s report must be included.
Auditing accounting books and records is a critical activity that ensures the correctness and integrity of financial information for a variety of reasons. Here are some of the primary reasons why auditing is important.
External audit processes are the actions and techniques an impartial external auditor use to assess a company’s or organization’s financial statements and other financial data. External audit processes resemble an inquiry into finances.
A complete audit offers a high degree of assurance. However, compared to an audit, a review engagement provides a somewhat lower level of confidence. The auditor does not do all of the steps that are performed during an audit, much like in a review. In addition to the yearly audit, publicly owned companies are required to have their quarterly financial statements scrutinized .
Sometimes, the need is to certify merely a single piece of financial information, such as the company’s annual revenue, or to report on a set of financial statements. Similar to a review engagement, the level of certainty in such agreed-upon procedures is lower .
In the event of a compilation engagement, the auditor is relied upon to create the financial statements, where his competence in gathering, categorizing, and summarizing financial information is simply required and not intended to provide assurance on the financial statements.