Putting it in few words then assurance engagement is much broader term and concept as compared to attestation engagement. It will not be wrong if we say that all attestation engagements are assurance engagements but not every assurance engagement is attestation engagement.
Assurance engagement is an engagement undertaken by the practitioner (e.g. auditor, reviewer etc.) and at the conclusion of engagement practitioner expresses an opinion about the evaluation of subject matter. This opinion ultimately enhances the confidence of intended users (other than responsible party) over the evaluation of subject matter.
Now assurance engagements can take two forms i.e.
- attestation engagement; or
- direct reporting engagement
Under attestation engagement, an evaluation of subject matter would have already been conducted by the responsible party against a set criteria. As this evaluation is usually given in the form of a report issued to the intended users by the responsible party. This report is actually a claim by the responsible party of a fair evaluation of subject matter. On that assertion made by the responsible party practitioner is asked to confirm whether such assertion of evaluation is fair or not. An engagement to attest the assertions of responsible party is called attestation engagement. And at the conclusion of attest engagement, practitioner will issue a report in which he may word his opinion as follows:
Example 1:
In our opinion, the responsible party’s assertion that forecasts has been prepared on best estimate basis, is fair.
Example 2:
In our opinion, the responsible party’s assertion that internal controls are working effectively, is fair
So, from above discussion we understood that attestation engagements are a sub-set of many different forms of assurance engagement in which a practitioner issues a report to attest the assertions of against a set criteria. However, assurance engagements is just any engagement in which user’s degree of confidence of is reinforced which need not to be attestation e.g. compilation services etc.
I reviewed your blog it’s really good. thanks a lot for the information about this blog. I want more information
The other comments were submitted by human drones or robots. They all have grammatical errors, and they add nothing. Something is up. Also, this article is horribly written.
Great distinction, thanks a lot for the clarity!
Great articles. It really assist my understanding.
I am student of ACCA and i visit this site that is really amazing.