Audit evidence

Audit evidence isinformation that the specialist received during the audit and on the basis of which he gave the final conclusion to the economic entity. As such documents may act as primary accounting data, explanatory notes and explanations of employees of the organization, results of inventory activities, financial statements of the client, data provided to the auditor by third parties.

All audit evidence must possessproperty of reliability and reliability. And questionable information is either subject to additional verification, or not at all considered as an argument. To directly obtain the required indicators, the auditor uses the testing of controls of on-farm activities and other verification procedures. Tests are for a specialist to talk about the rationality of the organization of the accounting system and control. The checks are essentially aimed at proving that there are errors or significant distortions.

The following types of audit evidence can be distinguished:

External.
Interior.
Mixed.

External evidence includes information anddata that the auditor receives from third parties. Internal evidence comes to the specialist due to the words of the economic entity or the firm's personnel. This information can be expressed both in written and oral form. A mixed type involves the provision of evidence by the client or employees of the company with the confirmation of third parties in writing.

In the case where the auditor uses documents fromdifferent sources that contradict each other, or the opinion of the staff diverges, it is advisable to apply additional audit procedures. And if the inspector does not receive full information about the audited entity due to the refusal of the legal entity itself, the auditor has all grounds for issuing a conclusion that is different from absolutely positive, or completing the report with a note about the lack of an information base.

Auditor's evidence is obtained by a specialist due to application of a special check, which includes the main stages:

Observation and study.
Request and receive a response.
Inventory.
Recalculation.
Analysis.

The study or inspection involves reconciliationrecords in the reporting with the actual operations. The level of reliability and reliability of indicators in this case is dependent on the present and the effectiveness of internal controls.

Monitoring includes systematic monitoring ofperformed by the work of employees of a particular department. The procedure for sending a request and receiving a response is to determine the specific information necessary to conduct a qualitative check. That is, the auditor sends a request for access to this data and waits for a positive or negative answer.

Inventory and recalculation allow the specialistto check the actual compliance of the indicators reflected in the documents and actually existing. The analytical analysis is carried out with the purpose of detection of distortions and definition of the concrete reason of occurrence of such situation.

Before choosing a particular method, the auditor shoulddetermine the sample size, that is, separate areas of application of methods and techniques of control, or express an opinion on the need for continuous verification in the enterprise. In this case, the specialist must comply with federal audit standards, which include two basic obligations:

Selected areas of the accounting report, selectedsample, should be an integral part of the general population, that is, correspond to the aspect by which the expert will make the final conclusion.
The sample should be a small copy of the population.

Thus, it can be said that the audit evidence is an important element, confirming the reliability and accuracy of the expert's conclusions.