The Importance Of Accounting Standards For Auditing

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Auditors have a complicated task at hand. They are required to gather, analyze, assess information about a company and then give their opinion on whether the financial statements are in congruence with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). In order to make their job a little easier, there have been people and organizations who have set standards to give them guidelines to direct them in what they should do. These standards are set up to give the auditors a set of rules, regulations and procedures to follow and enable them to get their job done efficiently and professionally. There are a few different organizations that each have their mission and individual task, however they have each set up standards for auditing. These standards are there for the auditors to give them a framework of the job they should be doing. Each of these sets of standards vary from each other and there are positive and negative aspects of each one.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is a membership organization of over 300,000 Certified Public Accountants. Members of the AICPA have set up ethical standards for auditing. They also grade the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) test and it provides specialty credentials for accountants. The standards they set up are of great importance to the auditing profession and are followed by thousands.
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is an organization set up by the congress to oversee the audits of public companies. Their goal is the protect investors and the public by encouraging audit reports for companies that will give over quality information and accurate results. They make sure that the audits are done and that the results are within the requireme...

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The AICPA, PCAOB and GAO are all organizations which compiled a list of standards for auditors. Each organization has their own objectives and reasons for writing their list of standards and each have a slightly different style and method to composing their standards. The sets of standards are all well written, informative and credible. There are many overlapping material between the standards, but there is also significant information that is included in some and not others. While assessing the differences between the standards of AICPA, PCAOB and GAO in regard to audit documentation and audit evidence, I found the GAO has to most valuable, informative and comprehensive set of auditing standards. These organizations have each done great work to enable auditors to follow a proficient set of standards, and therefore execute a professional and qualified audit.

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