Tips for Learning Auditing
You will find that the study of auditing is different from any of the other accounting courses you have taken in college, and for good reason. Most accounting courses focus on learning the rules, techniques, and computations required to prepare and analyze financial information. Auditing, on the other hand, focuses on learning the analytical and logical skills necessary to evaluate the relevance and reliability of financial information as well as of the systems and processes responsible for recording and summarizing that information. As such, you will find the study of auditing to be much more conceptual in nature than your other accounting courses. This is simply due to the nature of auditing. Thus, we will periodically prompt you to “stop and think” about the concepts being discussed throughout the book. Seeking to thor- oughly understand and apply principles as you read them will greatly improve your success in studying auditing.
Learning auditing essentially helps you understand how to gather and assess evidence so you can evaluate assertions (or claims) made by others. This text is filled with the tools and techniques used by financial statement auditors in practice. You’ll find that the “tool kit” used by auditors consists of a coherent, logical framework, together with techniques useful for analyzing financial data and gathering evidence about others’ assertions. Acquiring this conceptual tool kit can be valuable in a variety of settings, including practicing as an auditor, running a small business, providing consulting services, and even making executive busi- ness decisions. An important implication is that learning this framework makes the study of
LO 1-1