I’ve dropped the prices for the print copies of my books available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes store.
Here is what you can find on-line:
Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition
Story of Scott London’s fall from regional audit partner at KPMG to prison inmate because of his insider trading.
The body of SSARS literature has been updated and clarified. The new document, SSARS #21, was released on October 23, 2014.
It will be effective for financial statements after December 15, 2015. That means it will usually be required for 12/31/15 financials. We will all have to move away from SSARS 19 for our work in 2016. (Unless you choose to apply SSARS 19 for clients with years ending before 12/31/15.)
Since starting this blog, all discussion of compilations and reviews have been posted on my other blog, Attestation Update.
You can find all my discussion of the new standard at the other site.
Check out:
Print copy and Nook e-book are in addition to availability for the Kindle and another half-dozen formats.
The book is an intentionally short read at about 30 pages. The print copy has 20 pages of text. Focus is to quickly describe the differences between those levels of services using three illustrations:
It also explains the differences in plain language. Well, at least using less accountantese than you would usually get from an accountant.
This is a compilation of posts previously appearing on my blogs, with slight editing.
Where can you find the book?
Print book at Amazon here.
Nook e-book at Barnes and Noble here.
Kindle e-book at Amazon here.
Also available here in other formats:
Audit. Review. Compilation. What’s the difference? – Illustrations using a football game, buying a used car, and filling a bucket.
What’s the difference between getting an audit, review, or compilation from your CPA firm? This short, 29 page book will help you understand.
Three illustrations help explain the differences:
This is a compilation of articles at my blog, Nonprofit Update.
The book is now available at Amazon.
Now available here in other formats:
Soon to be available at Barnes and Noble.
Since football season is in full swing, let’s go to the nearest stadium to compare an audit to a review, to a compilation, and to the newest level of service, a preparation report.
Audit
If you were performing an audit, you would be on the field and receive the kickoff at your 20-yard line. A series of passes and runs would slowly move the ball. With effort you would advance to your opponent’s 10-yard line. Good touchdown position.
Advancing the football would be the same as gathering evidence to provide you a reasonable level of assurance so you could issue an audit opinion on the financial statements.
There are three different levels of services you could obtain from a certified public accountant. These are referred to as compilation, review, and audit.
Financial statements are presented on the basis of some set of accounting rules. This is referred to as the financial reporting framework.
The vast majority of the time, this would be a large body of knowledge that is called generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. Imperfect in implementation though it may be, the concept is that similar transactions will be recorded by all organizations in the same way. In addition, financial statements of similar organizations will actually look similar.
If there is some unique reason to do so, the financial statements could be presented on another basis of accounting.
Compilation
You could figure out how good a car is by looking at it from across the street.
Or you could look inside & drive it around the block.
Or you could take the car to your mechanic for a couple of hours to get it really checked out .
We can use that as an analogy of the differences between a compilation, a review, and an audit.
Update – SSARS 19 had been replaced by SSARS 21. All the reports have been revised. You can check out these posts at my other blog, Attestation Update:
Here is a list of the sample reports under SSARS available on my blogs. The samples are available on this blog as well as my other blog, Attestation Update. (These links go to the other blog.)
(cross-post from my other blog, Attestation Update.)
In a webcast on August 31, 2011, Mr. Michael Glynn, CPA, of the AICPA staff, gave a wonderful word picture of the levels of assurance in a review and audit. Here’s his idea: Filling up a bucket with procedures produces different levels of assurance. I would like to expand Mr. Glynn’s description and provide an illustration.
Notice the similarity and difference? The overlap between these definitions is how much assurance the accountant obtains for himself or herself provides that there are no material errors in the financial statements.
The differences?
(more…)
Earlier this year I wrote a CPE course on SSARS requirements for CCH . Back in April I mentioned Compilation and Review: Practice Issues (Third Edition) was available. Discussed that course here. Two more SSARS classes I wrote are now online. Another will be available soon. Each of the following classes are two CPE hours.
Compilation and Review: Introduction. Course description from CCH:
I have written a 3-hour online CPE course called Compilation and Review: Practice Issues (Third Edition). It is now available at the CCH Learning Center website.
Here’s what the course covers, from the CCH site:
I have four posts up at Attestation Update discussing how SSARS 19 says the accountant should deal with possible fraud and illegal acts encountered while performing compilations and reviews.
Click on any of the following links that look like a good place to start:
I have two posts at Attestation Update explaining how to address going concern issues under SSARS 19. The guidance found in SSARS 19 is rather brief. Here are the posts:
I won’t cross-post those comments to this blog. Please click the links above to read the discussion.
Update – SSARS 19 had been replaced by SSARS 21. All the reports have been revised. You can check out these posts at my other blog, Attestation Update:
I have written a series of eight posts on the documentation rules for reviews and comps from SSARS 19 on my other blog, www.attestationupdate.com. Those posts have been combined into a single ‘page’. This means you can read all the posts in chronological order, which also means they are in logical order. Click here for the page.
I have written an on-line CPE course on SSARS called Compilation and Review: Practice Issues. It is a 3 hour course covering a variety of practice issues for CPAs providing comps and reviews. It is written at the overview level.
Arriving soon at the CCH Learning Center. When it is available on-line, I’ll give more detail and a link to the course.
I wrote the course in a little more casual voice that you might expect to see in a technical class, but not quite as casual as you see on this blog. If you enjoy the style of writing you see here, you might enjoy the online CPE.
More detail to follow!
Update: 3-hour online CPE course called Compilation and Review: Practice Issues (Third Edition) is now available at the CCH Learning Center website. Course discussed in more detail at this post.