Bedard’s (2006) discussion of Vandervelde (2006) reinforces the fact that auditors do incorporate the relationships among accounts in their responses to increases in misstatement risk.  He also suggests that it is important to consider how this pattern maps to auditors’ risk assessments at the financial statement assertion level.  His discussion emphasizes that in response to fee pressure, auditors may shift planned audit hours between accounts (i.e., from low risk areas to high risk areas), rather than increasing overall planned audit hours.  Finally, despite Bedard’s (2006) caveat that this result could be due to auditor self-presentation concerns or a change in the mix of audit procedures that does not result in increased hours, it is important to note that auditors do not appear to reduce planned audit hours in response to fee pressure – and that this could reflect auditors’ cognizance of the heightened importance that investors and the market currently placed on the role of auditing.

Bedard, J. 2006. Discussion of: “The Importance of Account Relations when Responding to Interim Audit Testing Results”. Contemporary Accounting Research. 23(3): 823 – 831.

This study is a conference discussion of Vandervelde (2006).  The purpose of the discussion is to critically analyze the motivation, hypotheses, experimental design, results, and implications of Vandervelde (2006).  Please see the summary of Vandervelde (2006) for further details.  

The discussant first reviews research on risk-based auditing. The discussant believes that Vandervelde (2006) is studying an important aspect of the audit by examining how auditors incorporate relationships between accounts in their audit testing. Regarding Vandervelde’s (2006) predictions, the discussant believes that Vandervelde’s (2006) hypotheses could more accurately reflect the mathematical model’s predictions. The following points illustrate the primary differences between the expectations in Vandervelde (2006) and Bedard (2006).

• In response to Vandervelde’s (2006) prediction that the increase in planned audit hours as the severity of the problem increases is greater for related vs. unrelated accounts, the discussant observes auditors may compensate for increased hours in higher risk areas of the audit with decreased hours in lower risk areas of the audit, which explains why prior studies find that auditors do not always respond to risk.  
• Contrary to Vandervelde (2006), the discussant suggests that the increase in planned audit hours for low-relatedness accounts is not mitigated by fee pressure; rather there is a decline in planned audit hours, which is heightened by fee pressure.

The discussant reviews and provides suggestions for Vandervelde’s (2006) motivation, hypotheses, experimental design, and results.  The discussant also integrates Vandervelde (2006) in the context of prior research and suggests avenues for future research.

• The discussant observes that Vandervelde’s (2006) findings suggest that auditors do consider the relationship between accounts, as planned audit hours increase for accounts related to the account where the problem was discovered and do not materially change for nonrelated accounts. 
• The discussant states that Vandervelde’s (2006) finding that profit pressure does not influence auditors’ response to increases in risk is consistent with the market scrutiny on audit quality spurring audit firms to decrease emphasis on profit pressure.  However the discussant also observes that this finding could have been an artifact of the experimental design of the study, as auditors may have been reluctant to show that they are affected by profit pressure.  Further, this result suggests that auditors may change the mix of audit procedures for an account to address increases in risk, rather than changing the planned hours for that account.   
• The discussant suggests that it could be informative to examine how auditors react to risks at the assertion level, rather than the account level. He suggests that accounts can be classified as “derived” vs. “generating transactions”, which can assist in mapping to assertions.  In Vandervelde’s (2006) context, the purchases account would be classified as “generating transactions”, while accounts payable and inventory are classified as “derived” (from purchases on account/disbursements and purchases/sales, respectively).  Thus, loss of documents would suggest issues with the completeness assertion for purchases, accounts payable and inventory.  The loss of documents should prompt an auditor to adjust audit procedures related to completeness, but not other assertions.

For practice, the authors provide evidence about the relation between control deficiencies and substantive tests in the integrated audit. A significant minority of senior auditors attempt to identify bias in an accounting estimate with increased sampling from the biased estimation process, though they have been told that the estimation process is biased. The authors provide theory consistent empirical evidence that auditors often reach questionable, optimistic judgments about the capability of audit evidence to address control deficiencies. Auditors will often revert to what they know best, and it is difficult to get people to look beyond the familiar, regardless of experience level.

Mauldin, E. G., & Wolfe, C. J. 2014. How Do Auditors Address Control Deficiencies that Bias Accounting Estimates? Contemporary Accounting Research 31 (3): 658-680.

According to professional standards, auditors must integrate the internal control and financial statement audits. Revised risk assessment standards were issued, in part, to improve the integration of controls into the financial statement audit. However, PCAOB inspections find that auditors sometimes do not appropriately change the nature, timing, and/or extent of their substantive tests in response to clients’ internal controls. Auditors often have difficulty modifying substantive tests when responding to identified control deficiencies.

To shed light on the underlying reasons for this difficulty, the authors of this design a contextually rich experimental case and examine how auditors map a control deficiency into modifications of substantive tests. The authors examine control deficiencies that cause errors of omission in an estimation process, resulting in an incomplete and biased estimation process. The focus is on whether auditors recognize the insufficiency of reviewing the biased estimation process and how they select alternative tests to replace or supplement such review.

Eighty-seven auditors attending one Big 4 firm’s national training for experienced audit seniors participated in the study. The authors employ a between-participants experimental design with two treatments. The authors describe the treatments in sequence within the experimental task. They then randomly assign participants to experimental treatments and ask them to complete a case study. The evidence was collected prior to September of 2014.

• A significant minority of senior auditors (33 percent) attempt to identify bias in an accounting estimate with increased sampling from the biased estimation process. Further, they do this after being told that the estimation process is biased.
• Seeing the falsely favorable substantive test results, on average, does not influence auditors’ tendency to increase sample size.
• A supplemental sample of 14 managers produces a pattern of responses similar to the main results.
• When the bias is from externally prepared documents, the authors find that about one-half the auditors (54 percent) choose the more efficient alternative test, adjusting the estimate using documents.
• When the bias is from management judgment inputs, the authors find that most auditors (63 percent) choose to adjust the estimate using documents, even though this alternative is less effective than developing an auditor-generated estimate.
• The observed results are not driven by lack of experience with percentage-of-completion accounting.
• Together, the results suggest that auditors often make inefficient or ineffective alternative test choices depending on the source of omission caused by the control deficiency.

http://www.auditingresearchsummaries.org

The results of the study are important, as they demonstrate that relations among different financial statement accounts should be considered when examining how auditors respond to changes in risk of misstatements.  Specifically, auditors do appear to respond to increases in the risk of material misstatement of one account by also increasing planned audit hours in related accounts.  The results also highlight the fact that auditors’ responses to changes in audit risk are insensitive to fee pressure; specifically, the increase in budgeted audit hours when encountering a serious misstatement is similar whether fee pressure is low or high.  Moreover, the author suggests that the concept of relatedness of accounts explored in this paper could be extended to tests of internal controls – for example, information about the effectiveness of one internal control could be informative about strength or importance of related internal controls

Vandervelde, S. 2006. The Importance of Account Relations when Responding to Interim Audit Testing Results. Contemporary Accounting Research. 23(3): 789 – 821.

Both U.S. and international auditing standards mandate auditors to adapt audit procedures as the risk of the audit engagement changes.  As many financial statement accounts are interrelated (e.g., accounts payable and inventory), it is important for auditors to consider the relations between accounts when engaging in audit planning procedures and adjusting audit procedures for changes in risk.  This study tests auditors’ responses to risk changes discovered during interim testing (potential fraud, error, or no problem).  The study also explores the following two potential reasons why prior research has generally concluded that auditors are not very responsive to risk changes:

• Profit pressures may cause auditors to avoid increasing audit testing, in order to keep the engagement audit fees at the level initially agreed upon.  To address this potential explanation in the experiment, the author examines whether auditors’ still increase planned audit hours in the presence of more severe misstatements even when audit profit pressure is high.
• An auditor’s response to risk changes may not be detected when accounts are analyzed in isolation rather than considering the relations between accounts (that are inherent in the double-entry format of recording transactions). For example, an auditor may address an increase in risk of accounts payable by performing additional testing of inventory receipts. To address this potential explanation in the experiment, the author examines how auditors’ responses to risk increases in an account differ, depending on whether the accounts are related vs. unrelated. 

The research evidence was collected prior to 2004. The author uses a group of audit senior associates from both Big 4 and non-Big 4 audit firms to complete a simulated audit budgeting task from a website. Participants are first asked to read background information on the audit client, including the prior year audit budget and realized audit hours.  Then, participants are asked to prepare an
initial budget for audit hours allocated to five financial statement accounts.  Next, participants view the results from interim testing procedures (where the potential fraud, error, or no problem arises) and are then asked to indicate the amount of audit hours they would budget for the year-end audit work, representing their response to the change (or no change) in risk. 

• Auditors’ planned audit hours for an account increase as the interim audit procedure results indicate that the account has more serious problems (i.e., potential fraud is the most serious, error is moderately serious, and no problem is least serious).
• As the severity of a potential account misstatement increases, the associated increase in budgeted audit hours is greater when relatedness between accounts is high than when relatedness is low. 
• The increase in budgeted audit hours in response to the interim testing results indicating a serious misstatement is the same under both low and high fee pressure, indicating that auditors’ response to increased risk is insensitive to high fee pressure.

Analytical procedures are used frequently and increasingly are relied upon as substantive evidence. Based on this study, auditors are insensitive to the impreciseness of the analytical procedure when the results are favorable and may be a cause for over-reliance on weak evidence.  Performing a stronger, more precise analytical procedure caused participants in the favorable outcome situation to become more aware of the weakness of the initial procedure and re-evaluate their evidence strength rating. Further, evidence suggests that having auditors consider the possible weaknesses of an analytical procedure prior to performing the procedure will cause them to rate the strength of the evidence from a weak analytical procedure lower. Overall, this suggests a need to better train auditors in performing and interpreting analytical procedures.

In a discussion of Glover et al.’s paper, McDaniel asks whether the findings may indicate that auditors in the unfavorable outcome (i.e. there is a material difference) are under-relying on the evidence rather than that auditors in the favorable outcome (no material difference) are over-relying on the evidence. Glover et al. respond that the over-relying of the evidence is of concern to regulators and the alternative does not explain all of the results.  McDaniel also notes that the case study was of a company in the financial industry but that the participants were not required to have any financial industry experience. Glover et al. note that the interest income item is the issue which is not specific to the industry or complicated.  McDaniel also notes concerns about a potential “anchoring” effect as the participants performed their analytical procedures based on prior year working paper results.  In response, Glover et al. discuss this feature of an audit. 

Glover, S. M., D. F. Prawitt, and T. J. Wilks. 2005.  Why Do Auditor’s Over-Rely on Weak Analytical Procedures?  The Role of Outcome and Precision.  Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 24 (Supplement):  197-220.  

McDaniel, L. 2005.  DISCUSSION OF Why Do Auditor’s Over-Rely on Weak Analytical Procedures?  The Role of Outcome and Precision.  Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 24 (Supplement):  221-228. 

Glover, S. M., D. F. Prawlitt, and T. J. Wilks. 2005. REPLY TO DISCUSSION OF Why Do Auditor’s Over-Rely on Weak Analytical Procedures?  The Role of Outcome and Precision.  Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 24 (Supplement):  229-232.

In 2000, a Public Oversight Board panel viewed audit work papers and determined that 20% of the time substantive analytical procedures were weak and provided insufficient evidence to support the conclusion. This study aims to look at one of the possible reasons why auditors’ over-rely on weak, unreliable analytical procedures.  The authors hypothesize that auditors do not consider their existing knowledge about the quality of the procedure when the outcome indicates that the balance is “fairly stated.”

The authors performed two experiments prior to 2005 where a material misstatement exists and a “weak, unreliable” (highly aggregated) analytical procedure is used.  In experiment 1, senior associates from one Big 4 accounting firm were asked to perform an interest revenue analytical procedure at the annual grand total level and compare the results to the client’s unaudited balance.  The balance is manipulated so that some participants’ results indicate there is no significant difference (i.e. favorable outcome) and the other participants’ results indicate that there is a significant difference (i.e. unfavorable outcome).  Participants evaluated the strength of the analytical procedure and concluded regarding a misstatement.  Additional disaggregated computations (interest revenue calculations broken down by type of loan and performed quarterly vs. annual basis) were then provided. Participants responded to the procedure strength of the aggregated analytical procedure.  In experiment 2, different senior associates from one Big 4 accounting firm were asked to document the weaknesses of the analytical procedure prior to performing the procedure.

Experiment 1

• Auditors attribute more evidential strength to the results of weak analytical procedures if the results indicate no material difference than the identical procedure where the results indicate a material difference.  In addition, auditors in the  avorable outcome are more likely to assign a lower risk of material misstatement and assess the balance as fairly stated, than those in the unfavorable outcome.
•  After viewing the stronger, disaggregated analysis, auditors in the favorable outcome were more likely to revise their prior conclusion but auditors in the unfavorable outcome did not. Further, auditors in the favorable outcome were also more likely to downgrade their evidential strength assessment of the initial analytical procedure.
• Altogether, the authors believe this indicates a potential for over-reliance on weak high level analytical procedures and that in situations where analytical procedures indicate no significant difference, auditors are less likely to realize their procedure may produce imprecise expectations and deem it to be a stronger procedure than it really is.

Experiment 2

• Auditors who were told to consider the potential weaknesses of the analytical procedure before performing the analysis were more likely to rate the strength of the evidence as lower than those who were not.
• The prompt to consider potential weaknesses did not reduce the evidential strength assessment as much as requiring the additional analytical procedure in Experiment 1.