Question

The following auditor's report was drafted by a staff accountant of Paul and Paul, CPAs, at the completion of the audit of the comparative financial statements of ABC Corporation for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017. The report was submitted to the engagement partner, who reviewed matters thoroughly and properly concluded that an unmodified opinion should be expressed. The draft of the report prepared by an inexperienced staff auditor is as follows:

Auditor's Report

We have audited the accompanying financial statements of ABC Corporation, which comprise the statements of assets, liabilities, and capital as of December 31, 2018, and the related statements of revenue and expenses for the year then ended, and the related notes to the financial statements.

We conducted our audit in accordance with standards established by the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement.

An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditor's judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements.

We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion.

Opinion

In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the assets, liabilities, and owners' equity of ABC Corporation as of December 31, 2018, and its revenue and expenses for the year then ended in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles applied on a consistent basis.

Critical Audit Matters

There were no critical audit matters.

Paul and Paul, CPAs

March 31, 2019

Required: Identify the errors and omissions in the auditor's report as drafted by the staff auditor. Group the errors and omissions by paragraph, where applicable. Do not redraft the report

Answer 1

Title

As ABC corporation is a privately held company, the first error that can be identified as the incorrect title of the report. The report's title should be "Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm" and not Auditor's Report.

The report should have been addressed as follows:

"To the shareholders and the board of directors of ABC Company".

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First Paragraph

In the first paragraph, the staff auditor has failed to mention that the "Financial statements are the responsibility of the company's management". Additionally the staff auditor should have mentioned that the it is "Our responsibility to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audit".

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Critical Audit Matters

The following sentences (before stating that "There were no critical audit matters")  are required to be included in the audit report:

"Critical audit matters are matters arising from the current period audit of the financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments."

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End of Report

The staff auditor should also mention the location (in the format City and State or Country) after providing the name of the firm (Paul and Paul, CPAs) and before mentioning the date (March 31, 2019) at the end of the report.