Someone Else's Money

Classic traps from this chapter

1. The auditee is not the intended user. The auditee is the responsible party. The intended users are whoever the report was prepared for, and that is very often a parliament, an oversight body or the public. This is the single most reliable distractor in the whole subject.
2. No audit gives certainty. Reasonable assurance is high and it is explicitly not absolute. Any option containing the words absolute, guarantee or complete certainty is wrong before you finish reading it.
3. Reasonable and limited assurance are not two ways of saying the same thing. They differ in how much work was performed, and therefore in how much confidence is being offered. The wording follows from that; it is not the substance of it.
4. Compliance auditing is not always attestation. It can be attestation, direct reporting, or both inside one engagement. Only financial audit is always attestation.