What is the difference between Emphasis of Matter paragraph and Other Matter paragraph?
Auditor is required to express his opinion in the form of a written report called auditor’s report. Although auditor’s responsibility and also the purpose of auditor’s report is to convey primarily the auditor’s opinion on financial statements but if auditor believes that there is a matter that must be brought to attention of user of […]
Why auditor may be unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence?
Auditor is required to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence as it helps auditor reduce audit risk to appropriate level which leads to positive expression of auditor’s opinion in auditor’s report. Although auditor puts every effort in obtaining sufficient appropriate audit evidence, however, this is not always the case and under specific circumstances he may not […]
When Auditor expresses a Qualified opinion?
A qualified opinion is one of the three types of modified opinion that auditor expresses in circumstances where unmodified opinion is not appropriate in auditor’s judgment. Qualified opinion is also known as “except for” opinion. As the name suggests it is a conditional opinion on the financial statements being audited and implies that except for […]
What is meant by CAATs?
CAATs short for Computer Assisted Auditing Techniques simply means that assistance of computers is taken by the auditor while carrying out audit engagement. Some students misinterpret the term as if computers will carry out audit engagement as a virtual assistant to the auditor which is not the case as yet. Explanation As we have witnessed […]
What is age, aged, ageing or aging analysis?
Age analysis is simply a time-based analysis with reference to due date to determine either how much time is left until due date or how much time has passed since due date. Most of the time age or aged or ageing analysis refers to the second type of analysis i.e. how much time has passed […]
What is the difference between Audit engagement and Assurance engagement?
In few words, all audit engagements are assurance engagements but not all assurance engagements are audit engagements. Audit engagement is one type of assurance engagement that provides reasonable assurance. Assurance engagements can be reasonable assurance engagements, limited assurance engagements or other assurance engagements. Other assurance engagements are such assurance engagements that are other than audit […]
What is meant by deviation from controls?
Simply put; an instance or activity that did not occur as per expectations is considered as deviation. For an activity it is not necessary that it must occur as per expectations but also non-occurrence can be considered as deviation. In short, any thing that given rise to conflict between expectation and what actually happened is […]
Differentiate between Goods Received Note (GRN) and Goods Despatch Note (GDN)?
In order to control the activities of the business and have operations running effectively management is responsible to have controls in place. Without controls accountantability will not be possible. One of the ways by which controls can be implemented is by using control documents (sometimes known as source documents as some are used to initiate […]
Why auditors may fail to detect fraud?
Primary responsibility to prevent and detect fraud is upon management or those who are charged with an authority of management oversight (also known as those charged with governance). To achieve this objective it is their responsibility to have an effective internal control system in place which not detect fraudulent activities but also prevent them from […]
What are limitations of External audit?
Limitations mean restrictions or factors that limit the effectiveness of audit engagement and limits the auditor to restrict only to provide reasonable assurance. Most of the time when we refer to limitations of external audit we mean inherent limitations of external audit engagement or in other words inherent limitations of assurance engagement. But it does […]

