CPA Advanced Level
Advanced Auditing and Assurance cheat sheet
Every chapter's key points, formulas and definitions on one page, for the last week before the exam. Each heading links to the chapter that explains it.
Assurance and non-assurance engagements
- An assurance engagement ends in a conclusion that enhances users' confidence in a subject matter; agreed-upon procedures and compilations are non-assurance engagements and give no conclusion at all.
- Agreed-upon procedures under ISRS 4400 report factual findings from procedures the client agreed; a compilation under ISRS 4410 helps prepare financial information without giving assurance on it.
- Every engagement type needs its own engagement letter, because an audit letter's terms would not fit a compilation or an agreed-upon-procedures engagement.
- Reasonable assurance (an audit) gives a positive opinion; limited assurance (a review) gives a negative-form conclusion.
- A key audit matter shows where the auditor focused most attention and why; it is not a modified opinion and never stands in for one.
Key terms
- Types of opinion
- Unqualified, qualified, adverse, and disclaimer (covered in CPA Auditing and Assurance, under the auditor's report), each following directly from the sufficiency and nature of audit evidence gathered.
- Exemption from audit in Kenya
- Certain small companies may qualify for exemption from mandatory statutory audit under specified thresholds in the Companies Act, reducing compliance burden for genuinely small entities.
The rest of the sheet covers
- Audit framework and regulations
- Professional and ethical considerations
- Management of audit practice
- Audit evaluation and reviews
- Forensic accounting
- Concluding and reporting
- The regulatory environment
- Contemporary issues and emerging trends
- Exam technique and revision
- Glossary