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ACCA Strategic Professional · Advanced Audit and Assurance (International) · Reporting on other assignments

Brightwater Ltd asks its accountants to perform a reasonable assurance engagement on its customer satisfaction statistics. During planning, the practitioner finds the management has not documented how the figures are calculated and no recognised framework exists. What is the most appropriate consideration under ISAE 3000 (Revised)?

The practitioner should assess whether suitable criteria exist and are available to intended users. If management's criteria are unsuitable or not made available, the preconditions for an assurance engagement are not met and the practitioner should consider declining or withdrawing. Choosing criteria afterwards is not acceptable.

  1. AProceed, since the practitioner can choose criteria after finishing the work
  2. BProceed but describe the criteria only in the engagement letter
  3. CAssess whether the criteria are suitable, and if management's own criteria are used, ensure they are made available to intended users, otherwise consider withdrawingCorrect
  4. DConvert the engagement to an audit under ISAs

Explanation

The practitioner must determine that criteria are suitable (relevant, complete, reliable, neutral, understandable) and available to intended users. Absent suitable criteria, the engagement preconditions are not met. Criteria chosen after the work is done, or confined to the engagement letter, do not satisfy this.

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