Audit Documentation: What Is the Impact of Communication and Information of Audit Documentation

What is the impact of communication and information that is included in the audit documentation?

Understanding audit documentation

Audit documentation provides a written record of the conclusions that auditors provide as a support to the representations. Such is essential since it facilitates in the engagement supervision, performance and planning, which are vital for quality review of the work done (Enotes, 2014). As such, the documentation process of the auditor has to be conducted in an effective manner to ensure that it provides quality information and it is complete to offer a basis for conducting analysis. This is the important source of information, which is used by companies and other organizations as a basis for determining the strategic plans, business activities and other trends that individuals should engage in for the purposes of success achievement.

Communication

Audit documentation creates a platform for having effective communication between the auditor and the external parties. This offers the room for sufficient evidence provision on the entire process of audit documentation. Hence, it becomes easier to confirm the process of audit documentation in terms of areas of use, the response rates, reliability of the information, challenges linked to the electronic confirmation form, impact of service providers as third parties and confirmation requests for the forms. This is because the documentation is integral as a means of communication between the company personnel and the audit staff.

Purpose

Audit documentation has to have an effective communication, which indicates a story on the procedure that the audit team used in order to obtain conclusions. As such, the communication should have the potential of establishing linkages that exist between major risks and the process of addressing these risks (PCAOB, 2006). This facilitates in providing information on the gathering of evidence to aid in the planning phase, which connects the decisions and judgments on the audit work, as it is needed. Further, the used communication has to illustrate the evidence used in the risk assessment and performance of internal control links, which include the audit subjects (as an example, statement of finance and assertions). The communication should also indicate the procedure of getting conclusions and the evidence that was used in the support of these conclusions. These include relevant assurance standards compliance, methodology and office policies. In addition, the audit program has to have its stipulated objectives and the utilized line of enquiry.

Analysis

It is the size of the audit documentation, which determines the nature of communication strategy that auditors use. Such is because the documentation may be