Many times, a full financial statement audit may not meet the specific needs of your organization. A business should consider the level of service being rendered is in line with the needs of the user of the financial statements. Often a more cost-effective alternative may be available or performing specific agreed-upon procedures may provide more informative and relative information.
Understanding Your Attest Engagement Needs
Traditional financial statement audit engagements render an opinion on the basic financial statements and corresponding footnote disclosures, as a whole. Attestation examination engagements render an opinion on specific financial and nonfinancial data or processes. Attestation review engagements offer limited assurance on such data or processes. Parties who are interested in gaining a comfort level regarding such data or processes would be well served to explore the service offering.
To evaluate the potential of an attestation examination service offering, an interested party needs to consider the types of financial and non-financial data or processes for which they need an opinion rendered by an independent accounting firm.
Attestation Examination Engagement Examples
The following are just a few examples, where an attestation examination engagement could make sense for your organization:
- A company is conducting a marketing survey and they would like a report on the results of that survey, as to whether it is fairly stated. Here, an attestation examination engagement would make sense.
- A company wants to report to its investors that its process for recording revenue in accordance with the products sold or the service performed is reasonable. For this type of engagement, and attestation examination would make sense.
- The same company wants to provide limited assurance to its investors on its process for recording revenue. For this type of engagement, an attestation review engagement would make sense.
- A real estate company would like to issue a report to its tenants that its individual tenant security deposit accounts are reasonable when compared to the underlying obligations to those tenants. For this type of engagement, an attestation examination is appropriate.
- A charitable organization is conducting a raffle and they want to represent to their constituents that the processes underlying the conduct of the raffle are reasonable. For this type of engagement, an attestation examination is appropriate.
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For more information or to discuss your business needs, please connect with a member of our team.
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