The following steps indicate the general pattern of work performed by the auditors in the verification of accounts payable. Selection of the most appropriate procedures for a particular audit will be guided by the nature of the controls that have been implemented and by the results of the auditors' risk assessments. Show
Figure 14.2 relates the objectives of the major substantive tests of payables to the primary audit objectives.
If any of the inherent risks identified by the auditors are related to fraud, the auditors will make certain that they understand the programs and controls established by management to control the risk. They will also determine that the controls have been implemented. Finally, the auditors will design appropriate responses to these fraud risks and all other risks of material misstatement.
FIGURE 14.2 Objectives of Major Substantive Procedures for Accounts Payable
After the auditors have prepared a flowchart (or other description) of internal control, they determine whether the client is actually using the controls described to them; that is, they determine whether the controls have been implemented. The auditors will typically perform a walk-through of several purchase transactions and observe the implementation of the various controls. Figure 14.3 (pages 568-569) illustrates the documents and accounts that the auditors typically encounter in their consideration of controls over purchase transactions. As the auditors verify their understanding of internal control, they will observe and inquire about the segregation of duties for purchases and cash disbursements. They will also inspect the various documents and reconciliations that are important to the client's internal control over accounts payable. For example, the reconciliations of monthly statements from vendors to the payables ledger will be inspected. Budgets for cash disbursements will be inspected and the auditors will review the evidence of the follow-up on variances from budgeted amounts of disbursements. These procedures may serve as tests of controls that provide the auditors with sufficient evidence to assess control risk for certain financial statement assertions about accounts payable as being at less than the maximum. C. Assess the Risks of Material Misstatement and Design Further Audit Procedures.
FIGURE 14.3 Overview of the Purchases Cycle—Documents and Accounts Purchases (K)The auditors' assessment of control risk, along with their assessment of inherent risk, will be used to plan the nature, timing, and extent of substantive procedures for accounts payable. In designing planned substantive procedures, the auditors will consider potential misstatements that may occur and the weaknesses in control or other factors that make the misstatements more likely, as illustrated in Figure 14.4 (page 570). D. Perform Further Audit Procedures—Tests of Controls. Tests directed toward the effectiveness of controls help to evaluate the client's internal control and determine whether the auditors can support their planned assessed levels of the risks of material misstatement for the assertions about accounts payable. A number of tests of controls relating to accounts payable have already been discussed in Chapters 10 and 12. In this chapter, we briefly recap several significant tests. p. 5691. Examples of Tests of Controls. a. Verify a Sample of Postings to the Accounts Payable Control Account. The validity of the amount in the general ledger control account for accounts payable is established by tracing postings to the voucher registerA journal used in a voucher system to record liabilities requiring cash payment in the near future. Every liability recorded in a voucher register corresponds to a voucher authorizing future payment. and cash disbursements journal. This work is performed before the balance sheet date as part of a general test of postings to all records. At the same time, the auditors should scrutinize all entries to the control account for the entire period under audit and should investigate any unusual entries. b. Vouch to Supporting Documents a Sample of Postings in Selected Accounts of the Accounts Payable Subsidiary Ledger. Testing the voucher register or the accounts payable ledgers by vouching specific items back through the cash payments journal, purchases journal, and other journals to original documents (such as purchase orders, receiving reports, invoices, and paid checks) is necessary to determine the operating effectiveness of certain controls. If the functions of purchasing, receiving, invoice verification, and cash disbursement are delegated to separate departments and controls appear adequate, the vouching of individual items from the ledgers to the original records may provide the auditors with sufficient evidence to assess control risk for certain assertions (e.g., existence) related to accounts payable as being at a low level. p. 570FIGURE 14.4 Potential Misstatements—Accounts Payable
The auditors may also perform tests by following the audit trail in the opposite direction. By tracing a representative sample of entries from the source documents to the accounts payable ledger, the auditors can verify that accounts payable are completely and accurately recorded on a timely basis. c. Test IT Application Controls. When the client has established effective IT application controls for purchase transactions, the auditors may find it more efficient to test these controls rather than to test a sample of purchase transactions. Batch processing controls might be tested by inspecting evidence of the reconciliations of batch control totals by the control group. In addition, a sample of the exception reports printed by the computer when the vendors' invoices do not match purchasing and receiving information might be inspected, as well as evidence of follow-up on these exceptions.
On the other hand, an assessment of high control risk for accounts payable often means that the auditors have found that the subsidiary record of accounts payable is not in agreement with the general ledger control account, that receiving reports and vouchers are used haphazardly, that purchase transactions often are not recorded until payment is made, and that many accounts payable are long past due. In this situation, the auditors must undertake extensive substantive work if they are to determine that the balance sheet amount for accounts payable includes all liabilities in existence at the balance sheet date. E. Perform Further Audit Procedures—Substantive Procedures.
The client company usually furnishes the auditors with a year-end trial balance. The auditors should verify the footing and the accuracy of individual amounts in the trial balance. If the schedule of individual items does not agree in total with the control account, the cause of the discrepancy must be investigated. In most situations, the auditors will arrange for the client's staff to locate such errors and make the necessary adjustments. Agreement of the control account and the list of individual account balances is not absolute proof of the total indebtedness; invoices received near the close of the period may not be reflected in either the control account or the subsidiary records, and other similar errors may exist without causing the accounts to be out of balance.
Another reason for the difference in significance attached to confirmation of accounts payable is that the greatest risk in the audit of liabilities is the possibility of unrecorded amounts. While confirmation can provide evidence about completeness, it is a more effective procedure for establishing existence and valuation of an item. To make the confirmation procedure more effective at addressing the completeness of accounts payable, the auditors will often use a blank form, as illustrated by Figure 14.5. This form asks the vendor to fill in the amount of the liability rather than to confirm a recorded amount. Also, accounts payable confirmation requests should be mailed to vendors from whom substantial purchases have been made during the year, regardless of the size of their accounts at the balance sheet date (even to suppliers whose accounts show zero balances). These substantial suppliers may be identified by reference to cash disbursement records or computer printouts of purchase volume by individual supplier, inquiry of purchasing department personnel, and examination of the accounts payable subsidiary ledger. Other accounts that often are confirmed by the auditors include those for which monthly statements are not available, accounts reflecting unusual transactions, accounts with parent or subsidiary corporations, and accounts secured by pledged assets.
The auditors may test purchase discounts by computing the ratio of cash discounts earned to total purchases during the period and comparing this ratio from period to period. Any significant decrease in the ratio might indicate a change in terms of purchases, failure to take discounts, or fraudulent manipulation.
FIGURE 14.5 Accounts Payable Confirmation (K)In addition to the prior audit steps, when searching for unrecorded accounts payable the auditors will examine transactions that were recorded following year-end. A comparison of cash payments occurring after the balance sheet date with the accounts payable trial balance is generally the most effective means of disclosing unrecorded accounts payable. All liabilities must eventually be paid and will, therefore, be reflected in the accounts at least by the time they are paid. Regular monthly expenses, such as rent and utilities, are often posted to the ledger accounts directly from the cash disbursements journal without any account payable or other liability having been set up. Therefore, the auditors will often examine all cash disbursements over specific dollar amounts that are made by the client during the subsequent periodThe time extending from the balance sheet date to the date of the auditors' report.. p. 574The auditors should also consider potential sources of unrecorded payables such as the following:
A form of audit working paper used to summarize unrecorded accounts payable discovered by the auditors is illustrated in Figure 14.6. When the auditors discover unrecorded liabilities, the next question is whether the omissions are sufficiently material to warrant proposing an adjusting entry. Will the adjustment cause a sufficient change in the financial statements to give a different impression of the company's current position or of its earning power? As previously indicated in the discussion of the reconciliation of vendors' statements with accounts payable, auditors may choose not to propose adjustments for the purpose of adding shipments in transit to the year-end inventory unless the shipments are unusually large. As a further illustration of the factors to be considered in deciding upon the materiality of an unrecorded transaction, let us use as an example the December 31 annual audit of a small manufacturing company in good financial condition with total assets of $3 million and preadjustment net income of $100,000. The auditors' procedures bring to light the following unrecorded liabilities:
FIGURE 14.6 Search for Unrecorded Liabilities (K)The preceding examples suggest that a decision as to the materiality of an unrecorded transaction hinges to an important extent on whether the transaction affects net income. Assuming that an omitted transaction does affect net income and there is doubt as to whether the dollar amount is large enough to warrant adjustment, the auditors should bear in mind that about one-third of the effect of the error on net income may be eliminated by corporate income taxes. In other words, an adjusting entry to record an omitted expense item of $10,000 may reduce after-tax income by only $6,500. If the adjusting entry is not made, the only ultimate effect is a shift of $6,500 between the net incomes of two successive years. Unless the client requests all adjusting entries, the auditors should avoid proposing adjusting entries for clearly inconsequential errors in the year-end cutoff of transactions. However, it should be borne in mind that a number of insignificant individual misstatements may be material in their cumulative effect on the financial statements. Therefore, the auditors will accumulate the effects of the adjusting entries not proposed (passed) to consider them with misstatements detected in other accounts, as discussed in Chapter 16.
The independent auditors must search for such payables. All material payables to related parties must be disclosed in the financial statements.
Debit balances of substantial amount sometimes occur in accounts payable because of such events as duplicate payments made in error, return of merchandise to vendors after payment has been made, and advances to suppliers. If these debit balances are material, a reclassification entry should be made in the audit working papers so that the debit balances will appear as assets in the balance sheet rather than being offset against other accounts payable with credit balances. If the client company acts as a consignee of merchandise, it is possible that sales of consigned goods shortly before the year-end may not have been set up as a liability to the consignor. An accurate determination of any amounts owing to consignors at the balance sheet date is one step in the proper balance sheet presentation of liabilities. Accounts payable secured by pledged assets should be disclosed in the balance sheet (or a note thereto) and cross-referenced to the pledged assets. Which of the following procedures relating to the examination of accounts payable could the auditor delegate entirely to the entity's employees?Which of the following procedures relating to the examination of accounts payable could the auditor delegate entirely to the entity's employees? Prepare a schedule of accounts payable.
Which of the following audit procedures is best for identifying and recorded accounts payable?Which of the following audit procedures is best for identifying unrecorded trade accounts payable? Reviewing cash disbursements recorded subsequent to the balance sheet date to determine whether the related payable applies to the prior period.
What is the primary audit procedure the auditor performs to test the completeness of accounts payable?During the audit, the auditor should test for the completeness of accounts payable. The primary method for testing the completeness of accounts payable is to search for unrecorded liabilities.
Which of the following procedures would an auditor least likely perform before?Correct Answer: Option (a) confirmation of accounts payable is the correct answer because accounts payable are items due after the year end, and these would not be known prior to that date.
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