The course aims at developing students’ understanding of the critical aspects of managing an assurance and audit engagements: acceptance, planning, managing, concluding and reporting.

By the end of this module, students should be able to:

• Understand and advise on the regulatory, professional and ethical issues relevant to those carrying out an assurance/audit engagement
• Understand the processes involved in accepting and managing assurance/audit engagements, and how quality assurance/audit processes mitigate the risks to those conducting the engagement
• Plan assurance/audit engagements in accordance with the terms of the engagements and appropriate standards
• Conclude and report on assurance/audit engagements in accordance with the terms of the engagements and appropriate standards.

Module content

1.Introduction

• Types of Assurance engagements conditional on: timeframe, parties involved (external, internal, government-oriented), subject – purpose
• Users of reliable financial and accounting information – Providers of reliable financial and accounting information
• Inherent weaknesses of financial statements
• Assurance/ audit purpose
• Auditors’ role – Greece’s governing Law (L. 3604/2007 and L. 3693/2008)

2. Basic concepts relating to auditing

• Services provided by auditing firms (assurance, related services, consulting)
• Assurance providers’ responsibilities (requirements of any legislation or regulation, terms of engagement for the assignment, ethical and professional standards, quality control standards)
• Assurance service’s description (scope, necessity, basic elements)
• Auditor’s opinion
• Small recap on firms’ financial statements
• Related services’ description
• Consulting services’ description

3.Corporate Governance and Audit

• Corporate Governance’s purpose
• Corporate Governance’s tools
• Relevant legislation (USA SOX 2002, Directive 2006/43/EC, L 3016/02 and L 3091)
• Audit Expectations Gap
• Auditor’s responsibilities (social, legal liabilities)
• Degrees of legal liability under the Greek legislation
• Fraud definition (types and examples)
• Red flags

4.Professional Judgment and the auditing process

• Decision-making process
• Errors in decision-making processes
• Heuristics
• Ethics
• Auditor’s objectiveness and independence (along with the relevant regulatory framework in Greece)
• Adopting the IFAC Code of Ethics in Greece
• Threats to objectivity and independence
• Safeguards against the threats

5.True and fair view of financial statements and the auditing process

• Management assertions
• Audit evidence (trustworthiness, process of collecting audit evidence, inherent weaknesses in gathering audit services)
• Comparing the reliability of different types of assurance evidence
• Audit working papers and Audit file

6.Audit process and relevant analytical processes

• Selection, Planning, Execution, Reporting, and Follow-Up.
• Materiality
• Analytical processes defined
• Application of analytical processes
• Types of analytical processes 

7.Internal audit – Internal auditing systems defined – Control risk in internal auditing systems

• Parties affecting internal auditing systems
• Key elements of internal auditing systems
• Internal auditing in SMEs
• Weakness of internal auditing systems
• Assessing the effectiveness of internal auditing systems

8.Residual audit risk

• Audit risk Model
• Planning (tests) for errors
• Planning and developing an audit process

9.Audit sampling

• Risks related to audit sampling
• Types of audit sampling and types of samples
• Errors in audit sampling

10.Audit report defined (its importance)

• Written opinions (what type of questions are addressed) and auditors’ responsibilities
• Types of written opinions
• Audit reports when there is a disagreement between the auditor and firm’s management
• Main components of an auditing report

A number of case studies conditional on specific accounting data (eg. sales, inventory etc) will be covered during the conduction of this module.