According to General Guidelines on Internal Auditing issued by the ICAI, “Auditing is defined as a systematic and independent examination of data, statements, records, operations and performances (financial or otherwise) of an enterprise for a stated purpose. In any auditing situation, the auditor perceives and recognises the propositions before him for examination, collects evidence, evaluates the same and on this basis formulates his judgement which is communicated through his audit report.” The nature of the propositions which an auditor is called upon to review varies. Thus an auditor may review the financial statements of an enterprise to ascertain whether they reflect a true and fair view of its state of affairs and of its working results. In another situation, he may analyse the operations of an enterprise to appraise their cost-effectiveness and in still another, he may seek evidence to review the managerial performances in an enterprise. In yet another type of audit, the auditor may examine whether the transactions of an enterprise have been executed within the framework of certain standards of financial propriety. However, the variations in the propositions do not change the basic philosophy of auditing, though the process of collection and evaluation of evidence and that of formulating a judgment thereon may have to be suitably modified. According to AAS-1 on “Basic Principles Governing an Audit”, “An audit is independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, and irrespective of its size or legal form, when such an examination is conducted with a view to expressing an opinion thereon.” The person conducting this process should perform his work with knowledge of the use of the accounting statements discussed above and should take particular care to ensure that nothing contained in the statements will ordinarily mislead anybody. This he can do honestly by satisfying himself that :
- the accounts have been drawn up with reference to entries in the books of account;
- the entries in the books of account are adequately supported by underlying papers and documents and by other evidence;
- none of the entries in the books of account has been omitted in the process of compilation and nothing which is not in the books of account has found place in the statements;
- the information conveyed by the statements is clear and unambiguous;
- the financial statement amounts are properly classified, described and disclosed in conformity with accounting standards; and
- the statement of accounts taken as an integrated whole, present a true and fair picture of the operational results and of the assets and liabilities.
The aforesaid definition is very authoritative. It makes clear that the basic objective of auditing, i.e., expression of opinion on financial statements does not change with reference to nature, size or form of an entity. The definition given in AAS-1 is restrictive since it covers financial information aspect only. However, the scope of auditing is not restricted to financial information only but, today, it extends to variety of non-financial areas as well. That is how various expressions like marketing audit, personnel audit, efficiency audit, production audit, etc. came into existence. Students may note that study material deals with various aspects of financial audit only unless otherwise specified.
