CAQ's In-Depth Guide to Public Company Auditing Released

This month, the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) released the In-Depth Guide to Public Company Auditing designed to give readers who are unfamiliar with financial reporting and auditing a “behind-the-scenes look inside the financial statement audit process to provide further insight into the work the independent auditor performs to issue an audit report.” While intended for non-accountants, I think this guide is also a great resource for accounting students who are preparing to interview for their first public accounting job. This 20 page guide provides a fantastic overview of the specifics of public company audits, such as:
• The key players in a financial statement audit
• Assessing risk
• The Role of materiality in an audit
• The structure and role of an audit team and its members
• Overview of the audit process from beginning (developing an audit strategy) to end (communicating results to management and the Board)
• Example audit procedures
• The audit opinion

While all of these things are likely covered in an undergraduate auditing course, the CAQ Guide offers a thorough overview that would be ideal review material for any student going into a public accounting interview. I found the discussion of materiality, as well as the overview of the audit team to be particularly useful, and something that I did not quite grasp until I was actually working in the field. If you have a thorough mastery of everything in this Guide, you’ll be more than ready to prove to an interviewer that you have what it takes to be a successful auditor.