AUD, Auditing and Attestation
Sources for Other Reporting Considerations
Last reviewed
The standards and authorities behind PocketCPA's AUD lessons on Other Reporting Considerations. The topic rests on AU-C 800.
About this topic
Not every audit report is a plain opinion on a full set of GAAP statements. Some carry extra material alongside the statements, some cover only part of them, and some rest on a framework that is not GAAP. This topic covers those.
Each of them has a defined reporting mechanic worth knowing.
Key points
- An emphasis-of-matter paragraph draws attention to a matter appropriately presented in the financial statements without qualifying the opinion.
- An other-matter paragraph addresses matters not presented in the statements but relevant to the user's understanding of the audit.
- Comparative financial statements require the auditor to update the opinion on the prior period when reissuing.
- A predecessor auditor's report may be reissued or referenced by the successor in comparative presentations.
What the lessons cover
- Other information and supplementary information (AU-C 720, 725, 730)
- Special purpose frameworks
- Single statements, elements, and summaries (AU-C 805, 810)
- Comfort letters for underwriters (AU-C 920)
- Which standard applies, and what its report says
Authoritative references
Where these requirements sit in the literature. Each entry names the standard, then lists the paragraphs it turns on.
- AU-C 720: .14 (read and consider material inconsistency with the audited statements or with the auditor's knowledge obtained in the audit, while remaining alert for a material misstatement of the other information). The Other Information section and the response to an uncorrected misstatement are section level, as are all of AU-C 725 and AU-C 730.
- AU-C 800: .20 (the three contents of the emphasis-of-matter paragraph), .21 (restriction on use, for a contractual basis and a regulatory basis not intended for general use). The five frameworks, the general-use dual opinion and the differentiating titles are section level.
- AU-C 805: .14 (materiality for the single statement or element). The piecemeal conditions and the interrelated-element rule are section level, as are AU-C 810, AU-C 920 and AU-C 930.
- PCAOB AS 2710: .02, .03, .04, .05, .06. AS 2701: .02, .03, .09, .11, .15. AS 2705: .06, .07, .08. Each is glossed in this Topic's other-information divergence table.
- PCAOB AS 3305: .04, .05, .07, .10 and, on elements, .13 (materiality per element, interrelated elements), .14 (no piecemeal opinion), .16 (net income or equity requires auditing the complete statements). AS 3310: .02 and .04, the dual-opinion route. AS 3315: .01, .04, .05.
- PCAOB AS 6101: .12, .33, .34, .37, .38, with AS 4105 as the review the negative assurance rests on for an issuer.
- AU-C 705 for the opinion a material misstatement produces, which is where an AU-C 720 inconsistency lands when the statements rather than the other information are wrong.
How PocketCPA uses these sources
Every lesson is written in original words and cites the paragraph each rule comes from. No standard's text is reproduced. How lessons and questions are written and checked is set out in our methodology.