Shifa Fauzia

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Chapter 20
ATTEST AND ASSURANCE SERVICES, AND RELATED
REPORTS

OVERVIEW OF ATTEST AND ASSURANCE SERVICES

CPA Perform a wide range of assurance services. Assurance services are independent
professional services that improve the quality of information, or its context, for decision
makers. The financial statement audit has been the cornerstone of the accounting
profession. By performing financial statements audits, CPA have developed a reputation
for independence, integrity, and objectivity. The four basic level of assurance can be
described as follows:
• Audit or examination level assurance
• Review level assurance
• Agreed-upon procedures
• No assurance

The type of engagements is covered by professional standards developed by the AICPA.

These professional standards promote uniformity in quality of practice and enhance users
understanding of the differences in the types of services rendered and the levels of
assurance with them. The basic professional standards issued by auditing standard board
that relate to these services are as follows:
• Statements on auditing standards
• Statements on standards for attestation engagements
• Statements on standards for accounting and review services

OTHER SAS ENGAGEMENTS

Spesial reports are reports resulting from the audit of, or application of agreed-upon
procedures to, historical financial data other than financial statements prepared in
conformity with GAAP.AU 623. four comprehensive based of accounting other than
GAAP are recognized in AU 623.04:
• a basis used to comply with the requirements of financial reporting provisions of a
governmental regulatory agency
• a basis used to file the entity’s income tax return
• the cash receipts and disbursements basis of accounting and modifications of the
cash basis having substantial supports
• a basic that uses a definite set of criteria that has substantial support such as the
price-level basis of accounting

ACCEPTING AND PERFORMING ATTEST ENGAGEMENT

Attest services are engagements in which a certified public accountant in the practice of
public accounting is engaged to issue or does issue an examination, a review, or an
agreed-upon procedures report on subject matter, or an assertion about the subject matter,
that is responsibility of another party. The application of agreed-upon procedures does
not constitute an audit. This type of service might occur, for example in a proposed
acquisition when the prospective purchaser asks the accountant only to reconcile bank
balances and confirm the account receivable. Reporting the prospective financial
information is generally provided in publics offerings of bonds and other securities. The
type of prospective financial information is financial forecast and financial projection.
Another are in which CPA are increasingly being asked by regulatory bodies and other to
perform additional services is in regard to an entity’s compliance with specific
requirements such as laws, regulation, contracts, rules, or grants.

ACCOUNTING AND REVIEW SERVICES

The purpose of review engagements of the financial statements of a nonpublic entity is to
perform inquiry and analytical procedures that provide the accountant with a reasonable
basis for expressing limited assurance that there are no material modifications that should
be made to the statements in order for them to be in conformity with the GAAP. The
purpose of compilation engagements is to present in the form of financial statements
information that is the representation of management without undertaking to express any
assurance on the statements.

OTHER ASSURANCE SERVICES

CPA Risk advisory is an assurance engagement on business risk assessment that might
include any of the following types of services, identification and assessment of primary
potential risks faced by a business or entity, independent assessment of risk identified by
an entity, and evaluation of an entity’s systems for identifying and limiting risks. CPA
performance view is the AICPA’s branded version of performance measurements. The
AICPA has recognized performance view engagements is to provide assurance regarding
an organization’s use of both financial and non-financial measures to evaluate the
effectiveness and efficiency of its activities.