In audit, the wrong answer is the one that sounds almost right.

What is in the book

Twenty-seven short chapters in eight parts, each one assuming the ones before it. Every chapter but one closes the same way: a one-paragraph spine that compresses the argument, a numbered list of the traps that material produces under time pressure, ten check-yourself questions with answers and reasons, flashcards for retrieval practice, and the primary sources with their article and paragraph numbers so you can verify anything. This is not a question bank — it teaches the material and the reasoning, and it assumes you are practising alongside it.

The twenty-seven chapters

Each one opens on its own page, with the traps that chapter's material produces under time pressure.

1. 1. Someone Else's MoneyThe oldest problem in public finance, the three people it takes to solve it, and the one thing no auditor is ever allowed to promise.
2. 2. Three Jobs That Look AlikeAudit, evaluation and investigation share a vocabulary, a filing cabinet and often a corridor. Telling them apart is the difference between a right answer and a plausible one.
3. 3. Three Rulebooks, One ProfessionWhy the Notice speaks of professional standards in the plural, who writes each of the three books, and how to tell within seconds which one a question is drawing on.
4. 4. The Auditor's Only AssetIndependence, objectivity and the ethical requirements that all three rulebooks treat as non-negotiable, the five ways they fail, and why appearing compromised is as damaging as being compromised.
5. 5. The Rulebook of the BudgetFour hundred pages, seventeen titles and two hundred and eighty articles. What the Financial Regulation governs, the nine principles it imposes, and how to find any rule inside it in under a minute.
6. 6. Economy, Efficiency, EffectivenessThree words that appear in every audit mandate in Europe, what each one actually asks, where the Financial Regulation and the auditing standards disagree about the middle one, and how a finding is built on each.
7. 7. Who Spends, Who AnswersDirect, shared and indirect management. The three routes a euro can travel, who becomes responsible on each of them, and the package of paperwork that arrives in Brussels every February.
8. 8. The Chain of AssuranceThe authorising officer, the accounting officer and the internal auditor. Who signs what, on the strength of what, and what happens to the member of staff who thinks an instruction is wrong.
9. 9. The Court in LuxembourgThe Union’s external auditor. The rights it holds over every document, every computer system and every recipient of EU money, the two reports that shape the accountability year, and why the auditee always gets to reply.
10. 10. Closing the YearHow an accountability year actually ends. The calendar that runs from March to the following May, what the European Parliament reads before it decides, and what happens when it decides not to decide yet.
11. 11. Choosing What to AuditHow an audit body decides where to look, the three tests a topic has to pass, why a scoring model never makes the decision, and the difference between the risk that selects an audit and the risk that runs inside one.
12. 12. The Question You Are AnsweringObjectives, scope and audit questions. Why an engagement that starts with a vague question can never end with a clear conclusion, and how to write a question that survives eight months of fieldwork.
13. 13. Where to Look HardestCriteria, materiality and audit risk. The three judgements that decide what an auditor actually examines, why materiality is defined by the reader rather than by the auditor, and why avoiding difficult subjects is itself a risk.
14. 14. What Counts as ProofSufficiency and appropriateness, the three dimensions of audit risk, why more evidence never rescues bad evidence, and the discipline of looking for the material that contradicts you.
15. 15. A Part, and the WholeSampling, and the other ways of choosing what to test. Why a representative sample and a risk-based selection answer different questions, and what each of them entitles you to say about the files you never opened.
16. 16. Machines That Read EverythingData analytics, automated tools and emerging technologies. What they change about selection and testing, what EU law now requires of them, and the two things they cannot do however good they get.
17. 17. The File That Speaks for YouAudit documentation. The stranger who has to follow your reasoning without you in the room, what has to be in the file and when, and how long any of it has to be kept.
18. 18. From Observation to FindingThe four elements of a finding, why cause is the one that makes a recommendation possible, how findings become conclusions, and the follow-up that decides whether any of it mattered.
19. 19. Error, Irregularity, FraudThree words that are used as synonyms in conversation and are three different legal categories in law. What an auditor is responsible for, what an auditor must not do, and which body takes over when the auditor stops.
20. 20. Systems, Not TransactionsGovernance, risk management and internal control as the subject matter of an audit. What a control system is made of, the three questions you ask of any control, and why reliance has to be bought with evidence.
21. 21. Auditing What You Cannot SeeInformation systems as audit subject matter. General and application controls, why the general ones have to be tested first, the letter that has to accompany a data extract, and the one report an auditor may have to think twice about publishing.
22. 22. Value for MoneyBuilding a performance audit from end to end. What such an audit is actually for, why its three parties are harder to identify than anywhere else, and how to conclude on economy, efficiency and effectiveness when no opinion is expected of you.
23. 23. The Report Is the ProductOpinions and how they are modified, the five principles a report must satisfy, what goes in one, the statement of assurance the Union produces every year, and how to write for people who are not auditors.
24. 24. Running the EngagementStrategy and plan, assembling a team that collectively knows enough, the time budget as a quality question, external experts, supervision and review, and what happens when the reviewer and the team disagree.
25. 25. Method, Memory and QualityThe standard that changed in 2025, the seven organisational requirements it imposes, the review that must be finished before the report is dated, and how an audit institution keeps what it learns.
26. 26. The Whole Field at a GlanceEverything in this book, compressed. Not a substitute for the chapters, and not to be read until the chapters already feel familiar.
27. 27. Into the ExamWhat the Notice fixes and what it leaves open, the one test that decides your ranking, why your essay may never be read, how to spend forty minutes on thirty questions, and what to do about material that has changed since this book was printed.

How you receive it

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Where the material comes from

“Everything in this book is drawn from official, publicly available primary sources that were in force at the time of writing. Each chapter lists the sources it used, with the instrument, the article or paragraph number, and the version.”

Texts of EU law are cited from EUR-Lex with their Official Journal references, so every instrument can be found in the version used. Where a framework is private and protected by copyright — the Global Internal Audit Standards, the pronouncements issued through IFAC — the book reproduces none of it: it states what the standard requires in its own words and tells you exactly where to read the original. Every source it uses is free to consult.

No statistic about the competition, about candidates or about pass rates appears anywhere in the book. Worked cases with amounts and sample sizes are invented to teach a point and are labelled as such where they appear. PassEPSO is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to EPSO, EU Careers, the European Court of Auditors or any institution of the European Union. Your Notice of Competition governs — not this book.