The Weight of the Evidence · Chapter 13

Part Three · Before the Work Begins

Where to Look Hardest

Criteria, 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.

Classic traps from this chapter

  1. Materiality refers to the intended users’ decisions. Not the auditor’s judgement of importance and not the auditee’s. Any option anchoring materiality in the auditee is wrong.
  2. In performance auditing, monetary value need not be primary. Social and political significance count, and materiality varies over time and by perspective.
  3. Materiality applies at all stages, from topic selection to documentation. It is not a threshold fixed once.
  4. Audit risk in performance work includes failing to add value. An accurate but useless report is a realisation of audit risk.

Chapter 13 in full

The traps above are how this chapter ends. The chapter itself works the material through first — the reasoning, the sources with their article and paragraph numbers, check-yourself questions with the reasons under them, and flashcards for retrieval practice.

The Weight of the Evidence is the PassEPSO study book for the field-related test of EPSO/AD/428/26: 536 pages in 27 chapters, PDF and EPUB.

€49, VAT included. Paid once — no subscription, no renewal, nothing to cancel.