BAO5524-Professional Auditing

Section -I Case Study on Ethics

Andy Smith is a promising senior manager beginning his tenth year at his firm. Andy has been a steady performer during his career and is known for his technical and personal skills.

Not all the firm’s partners are enthusiastic about Andy. His track record for bringing in new clients has been marginal. This weakness has not stopped Andy moving up the ladder, but slow expansion in the client base has meant that the firm has not made a new partner for three years. Andy is well aware that his ability to bring in new clients is critical to his aspirations to become a partner. Office Supplies (OS) Ltd, a large supplier of office products, furniture and technology, has decided to put its audit and related accounting services out for tender. OS’s current auditor performs significant non-audit services. In fact, fees for non-audit services are well in excess of the audit fee.

Andy has been given the primary responsibility for developing and presenting the tender to OS’s board of directors. He has nearly completed preparations for the presentation and has discussed all the specifics with two partners who will have a significant involvement in servicing the audit and related service needs of OS, should the firm be successful in its tender. As required by the board of OS, a detailed outline of the proposal presentation and itemised preliminary budget were submitted nine weeks in advance of the presentation.

On the Monday evening before the presentation, Andy’s wife receives a call from her sister, Lisa. Lisa’s flatmate, Silvya, is the secretary of OS’s managing director. Silvya noticed that one of the proposal presentations was going to be done by someone named Andy Smith and asked if it was the same Andy Smith who was married to Lisa’s sister. Lisa said it was and Silvya began to tell her about some of the proposals.

Silvya had said she noticed several things about the managing director’s evaluation of the proposal submitted by Andy’s firm. First, the bid was significantly higher than one of the other bids. Second, the managing director had mentioned two items of major importance that had been left out of the proposal. Silvya could not remember these items ‘off the top of her head’, but she told Lisa she would be willing to run off a copy of the memo if Lisa wanted her to. Andy’s wife tells him about the call from Lisa at dinner that evening. 

Required:

(a) Consider the ethical issues, in relation to Andy, Andy’s wife, Andy’s firm, Lisa, and Sylvia.

(b) Recommend the most appropriate course of action that Andy should take that will be in compliance with the spirit and form of the professional standards, and/or the Corporations Act 2001. Cite relevant references where appropriate. 

Section II Case Study using activedata for excel

You have been assigned to the audit of inventories for GHT Ltd. (GHT) for the year ended 31 March, 2018. GHT sells a wide variety of hardware products to retail outlets. All inventory is purchased for resale directly from manufacturers and the inventory items are located in a single warehouse. GHT maintains computerised perpetual inventory records and uses the first-in first-out (FIFO) inventory method for external financial reporting. Due to time restraints and remote location of the warehouse, you were unable to attend the physical stocktake of the inventory at the end of the financial year. However, GHT’s accountant, Steven Day, advised you that there were no material discrepancies found between the physical stock count and perpetual records of the inventory. At your request, Steven emailed you an electronic listing of the inventory (GHT_Inventory.xls) on 15 May, 2018, along with the financial reports for the year ended 31 March, 2018. The inventory on hand at 31 March, 2018 was reported at $455,319.55.

Required:

(a) Identify the key financial report assertions for the audit of inventory at GHT Ltd.

(b) Perform audit procedures, using the “Active Data for Excel” add-on to Microsoft Excel to address the assertions identified in (a). The inventory listing of GHT Ltd., GHT_Inventory.xlsx, is posted on the VU Collaborate homepage of BAO5524.