Don’t you just love it when the auditee won’t respond to your email? Or when your audit manager goes to a conference before finishing the review of your working papers? Waiting, I am afraid, is part of our job but you don’t have to let waiting get the better of you. Yes, of course, you […]
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New Internal Audit Disclosure
An internal auditor following 2018 Yellow Book standards should add a statement to their audit report regarding their independence. This is new and I didn’t want you to miss it! GAGAS 2018 9.04 Audit organizations that meet the independence requirements for internal audit organizations, but not those for external audit organizations, should include in the […]
Using the name GAGAS in Vain
Do you ever use the words “Jesus!” or “God!” to punctuate a sentence? My aunt couldn’t stand it when we used the Lord’s name in vain. Using the Lord’s name in vain was a big no-no to her (and many others). She would cuss us out if we kids ever made that mistake in her […]
Is every not for profit audit a Yellow Book audit?
Clifford, a CPA in public practice, wrote to ask me recently if a not for profit audit he just took on had to be conducted in accordance with Yellow Book auditing standards. He was relieved to hear that in his particular case, the answer was no. What would have changed my answer? You see, the Yellow […]
What is audit criteria?
Audit criteria is the standard that you evaluate the subject matter against. Without firm criteria, the auditee will likely resist your audit recommendations. I know I did when I was audited. Auditees might fight you over every statement in the report I was audited three times in a very short period because I was the […]
Performance Audit vs. Financial Audit
So how do you tell the difference? Performance audit vs. financial audit? You might expect that it would be as simple as saying that a financial audit deals with money and a performance audit does not. But oh no! The audit standards are never that straightforward. As a matter of fact, the most comprehensive audit […]
Has a compliance audit ever made you cray cray?
A compliance audit can be one of the most straightforward audits out there OR it can drive an auditor absolutely nuts. Since an audit is defined as the evaluation of a subject matter against a criteria, an auditor’s level of sanity hinges on how clear the criteria is. The GAO gives us a long list […]
4 Layers of Federal Grant Compliance
An audit is defined as the evaluation of an audit subject against given criteria. And the federal government gives and gives and gives when it comes to auditing federal grants. 🙂 An audit of federal grants is often a “Single Audit”. If an entity expends more than $750,000 in federal grant funds in a year, […]
Are auditing and monitoring different?
Yes, and no. Auditing and monitoring are very similar in their approach to gathering evidence and reporting, so sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the two. So close in fact, that many professionals are confused about which is which. Add that to wacky stakeholder expectations, and you end up with quite a jumble. Auditors […]