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The Audit Assurance Blog - Reasonable Vs Limited Assurance Engagement
The Audit Assurance Blog - Reasonable Vs Limited Assurance Engagement
REASONABLE VS LIMITED ASSURANCE ENGAGEMENT OUR SPONSORS
WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011
EXAMINER'S ANALYSIS EXAMINER'S
The International Framework for Assurance Engagements (The INTERVIEW APPROACH INTERVIEW
Framework) permits only two types of assurance engagement, i.e.
a reasonable assurance engagement and a limited assurance
engagement.
TOPICS
Reasonable assurance engagement
Assurance Engagements
In a reasonable assurance engagement, the practitioner gathers The Framework
sufficient appropriate evidence to conclude that the subject
matter conforms in all material respects with identified suitable criteria, and gives a report in the
form of a positive assurance.
The term 'sufficient appropriate' is somewhat technical. 'Sufficient' refers to the quantity of
evidence obtained. The evidence collected has to be enough, and how much is enough depends
on the auditor's risk profile and the circumstances of the engagement. If an auditor is aggressive,
then lesser evidence would considered to be enough to provide the level of confidence from which
an audit opinion is issued. Conversely, a more conservative auditor would wish to collect more
evidence on which to base his/her opinion. However, in a reasonable assurance engagement, the
quantity of evidence collected would not be too limited as the auditor is trying to conclude that the
financial statements do in fact comply with the relevant criteria in all material respects.
'Appropriate' on the other hand refers to the quality of evidence obtained. It can be further broken
down into two elements, i.e. relevance and reliability. An evidence collected is considered
'appropriate' if it is relevant to the assertion being tested and is obtained from a reliable source.
A positive assurance is given when the auditor gives a 'direct' opinion on the financial statements.
This is illustrated as follows:
'the financial statements have been prepared in accordance with applicable legislation and
accounting standards'
The opinion above shows that the auditor is very confident about making his/her statement simply
because the evidence collected and the work done have been extensive, covering all material
areas of the financial statements.
Limited assurance engagement
In a limited assurance engagement, the practitioner gathers sufficient appropriate evidence to
conclude that the subject matter is plausible in the circumstances, and gives a report in the form
of a negative assurance.
In this case, the auditor also gathers sufficient appropriate evidence but only to confirm that the
financial statements are 'worthy of believe' from which to issue an opinion. This means that the
quantity and quality of evidence gathered would be lower as compared to those in a reasonable
assurance engagement, since the objective here is not to cover all material respects of the
financial statements.
The auditor then gives a negative assurance by providing an 'indirect' opinion on the financial
statements. This is illustrated as follows:
'nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the financial statements are not
prepared in accordance with applicable legislation and accounting standards'
The opinion above shows that the auditor is less confident about making his/her statement simply
because the evidence collected and the work done have been limited. The auditor is essentially
giving an opinion based on what he/she was able to find in the limited amount of testing and
checking.
The Framework states that the level of assurance given by a reasonable assurance engagement is
high, whereas a limited assurance engagement gives a moderate level of assurance. It is not
possible to give an absolute level of assurance because of the following:
3. The fact that evidence is usually persuasive rather than conclusive. Most evidence
collected are persuasive in nature, i.e. they are at best persuading the auditor to believe that
a particular assertion has been justified.
4. The fact that evidence is gathered on a test basis. In order to be costeffective, most
evidence are gathered from testing samples of items in a population rather than checking all
items.
5. The completeness problem. Even if the auditor tests all items in a population, there is still
the risk that some items may be omitted from the population in the first place.
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