Performance SupportWorking Through an Audit Section The following performance support walks through the overall steps of completing

an audit section from getting started to clearing review notes. The performance support provides tips when working through your assigned audit sections. This performance support will cover the following topics (click on a link to go to the topic): DETERMINE THE SECTIONS YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED SET UP THE APPROPRIATE PACK START YOUR ASSIGNED SECTION COMPLETE THE ASSIGNED SECTION CLEAR REVIEW NOTES KEEP TRACK OF YOUR TIME! DETERMINE THE SECTIONS YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED When you start at the entity site on your first day, your field senior will let you know which account balances, classes of transactions or disclosures have been assigned to you and the risks of material misstatement you will be addressing. You should ask your field senior for advice on how long it should take you to address the risks assigned to you within each section so that you can start managing your time. This will also give you a target to work towards. SET UP THE APPROPRIATE PACK Before starting to work on any sections assigned, you must first set up a new file for the audit engagement on your laptop. Ask your field senior which pack you should be using. Once this is set up, your field senior will transfer the audit documentation for your assigned sections to you from their master file. This may be via email, a flash drive, or other device. For more information, refer to Performance SupportWorking with START YOUR ASSIGNED SECTION When you receive your working papers from your field senior make sure you have the relevant working papers related to the risks you are testing, including the Risk Assessment and Audit Plan (RAAP) and Model Audit Program (MAP) that highlights the risks being addressed along with the procedures you need to perform, the leadsheet that summarizes the amounts for the account balances or classes of transactions for the current year-end, and, if applicable, the prior year testing working papers. o Included with the working papers will likely be the prior year audit documentation. You can use the prior year audit documentation as a useful reference for the current year audit. It can be confusing once you start testing what relates to the current year and prior year. A tip for tracking prior year audit documentation is to make copies of all of them and rename the copies (which will be the red documents in your index) "PY" for prior year, and turn the copies into carbons. This copy will function as your 1

prior year reference. You should never copy MAPs, Smart Audit Support (SAS) documents, or trial balance (TB) linked leadsheets, as this will interfere with the linkages within your file. Once you have successfully transferred the audit documentation, you open and read the RAAP and MAP. The RAAP and MAP summarize all of the risks identified and the planned procedures to complete to address the risks for a particular account balance, class of transaction or disclosure (these will have been identified by your field senior at the planning stage). o Once you have read the MAP, ask your field senior any questions you have regarding the tests you are to perform in order to address the risks. This is extremely important as the MAP steps are the procedures that you are about to perform and you need to ensure that you understand what you are expected to do. It is your responsibility to make sure you are satisfied with the planned procedures and you should ask questions until you know that you can start the testing as detailed in the MAP.

For further information on MAPs, refer to Performance SupportUsing the Model Audit Program. Read through any general overview documents, if any, in your section (could be a memo or summary in the testing workbook that summarizes the work performed and conclusions reached in the section from the prior year) before you begin testing. Review the Entity Prepared Documents (EPD) list for your sections to see what documents to expect from the entity to support your work. o Consult the EPD list and speak to your field senior before you ask the entity for information. One of the key entity complaints is being asked for information that has already been provided to the audit team. After you have read the background information listed above, open your testing working papers, and read the entire document before making any changes. NOTE: Reviewing prior year audit documentation will give you an understanding of how the risks were addressed last year. It is important to remember that the audit is performed by thinking about what you do; therefore, you may see an area that can be improved regarding how we perform our test, in order to address the risks identified appropriately. You should discuss it with your field senior. You should always determine what audit procedures are appropriate in the current year, irrespective of what was done in the prior year audit. o As you go through the audit documentation, accumulate your questions. In many cases, you may be able to answer your questions through review of prior-year audit documentation or from discussion with your field senior before asking the entity.

COMPLETE THE ASSIGNED SECTION Once you have completed addressing the risks assigned to you in the audit section, perform a self-review of all of your work to ensure all procedures have been completed as required by the MAP; all procedures have been documented; working papers have been cross-referenced and signed off, etc. For further information on completing your working papers, refer to Performance Support Preparing Audit Documentation. Ensure the leadsheet figures agree to the trial balance for the current year and to Financial Statements for the prior year. Transfer the working papers to your field senior or audit manager for review. o This includes the leadsheet, MAP, electronic working papers, manual working papers, and any other documentation that supports your work. o Do not transfer the prior-year audit documentation to anyone unless specifically requested to do so, as it is there for your reference and not for review. All of your work should be done on current year working papers. CLEAR REVIEW NOTES Once your field senior has reviewed the procedures performed to address the risks, they will transfer it back to you with their review notes. Read the review notes and discuss them with your field senior to ensure you understand what your field senior is asking you to do. Address each review note by documenting changes in the audit documentation, as well as noting what was done in the review note. Once you are satisfied that you have addressed the review note, you can close it. Do not delete any of the review notes. The reviewer will delete them when you transfer the audit documentation back to them. Make sure you have cleared all review notes then you may delete the prior year audit documentation. KEEP TRACK OF YOUR TIME! As above, your field senior should have indicated how long they expect you to take to complete the procedures to address the risks assigned to you. If not, you should ask them. This is important, as it will help your field senior to manage the budget and time allocations as the audit progresses. For example, keeping track of time will enable the field senior to decide whether more staff needs to be booked to the audit engagement or if you will be finishing ahead of schedule. Also, you should keep specific examples of any entity delays you experience and how much time you spent resolving the issue (e.g., the entity gave you the incorrect schedule, or a preliminary copy that they told you was final). This will help your audit manager or

field senior if the audit costs go over budget, as some of the extra costs can be charged to the entity if the delays are due to entity error.