Product Description

The inclusion of the newly released AS5 Auditing Standard makes this text the most up to date auditing text on the market. It’s been written so that it is current with all issues inherent in accounting and auditing practice, particularly in public accounting firms including coverage of the creation of the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board, the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and all of the major pronouncements issued by the AICPA. It’s also a leader in fraud coverage and is accompanied by the Apollo Shoes Casebook, the only standalone FRAUD audit case on the market (available online on the book’s website). The text is also designed to provide flexibility for instructors; the twelve chapters focus on the auditing process while the eight modules provide additional topics that can be taught at the instructor’s discretion without interrupting the flow of the text.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20830 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 865 pages

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive But Very Dry Reading
I'm currently using this book for an online course in Auditing. The book is current and comprehensive. I doubt any introductory Auditing text contains more complete information.

Having said that, this book is extremely dry reading. The dryness affects readability and comprehension of the material. Early in the course I discovered the AICPA site that documents the actual auditing standards. I found them to be eminently more readable than this text for almost any given section. Unfortunately, the standards are more designed to be reference material than text material, so using them for more than a passing reference was impractical.

I purchased an older copy of the popular Messier, Glover, Prawitt text as a secondary reference. Except for AS5 material, it was more than adequate to use as a supplement. In the latter text, the same material was far more approachable.

To make a point, I like statistics. I'm not an expert, but statistics does not intimidate me. The statistical auditing material in the Louwers text was so dry and muddy that I was very unclear on many concepts, even after reading it several times. Reviewing the same material in the Messier book made the light go on quickly. I thought to myself "oh, this is what they meant." Going back to the Louwers text, it was still dense and dry and far less comprehensible than the Messier book.

I went into this class with about 20 years of IT experience behind me. I designed and wrote large and small custom business systems for most of that time. This included client meetings, analysis, system design, program design, and programming.

The publisher's test bank was used for quiz material. It contains an annoying number of 'thee vs thou' multiple choice questions. In other words two answers were correct selections. Both were similar in 'weight' in that neither could be considered the 'best' answer if debated or analyzed, especially by someone who is middle aged with a lot of business experience. There were also a fair number of quality control errors where the wrong answer was selected as the correct one, often at the answer key level. This was especially annoying when common sense provided one answer but the answer key said something else.

In addition, the quiz material with respect to IT auditing reflected IT as is was over a decade or two or three ago. Be prepared for quiz questions about hash totals and external file labels. Much of my IT experience involved consulting. In all that time I ran across maybe two systems that used hash totals and the user on one, I'm sure, lied when claiming that referring to them was important. The other didn't know what they were. References to external labels involve mounting of files by operators and the need for auditors to see that they are labeled properly as a matter of data security. (I'm not kidding ... bet you thought I meant internal vs external labels as you might see in a file override under program control). Nothing regarding file security at the operating system level was even hinted at on the quiz questions I was exposed to.

The errors and ambiguity, combined with the dry and sometimes dated material, made this a frustrating course to complete.

In summary, I think there are better texts to use if you are an instructor who is looking for a text for your course, especially if you are conducting a 'turnkey' online course in Auditing.

Textbook - Auditing & Assurance
The book arrived sooner than expected which is always nice. The book is well organized and the exhibits are relevant. The learning objectives are listed at the beginning of each chapter and each section lists its own applicable learning objective so you do not forget the relevance of that section, which is very useful when you have 30 pages to read for a chapter. The book also contains highlights throughout the book titled "Auditing Insights" that provide additional information about legal cases and applicable regulations relevant to a specific topic. This is really a nice feature. If you want to know how a standard or law is actually practiced the Insight gives you your answer.

Very good textbook
I have read the Table of Content and one Chapter of that and think this is a well organized and understandable textbook. It uses plain English and introduces from outside to inside of auditing, step by step. I have read Becker CPA review (Auditing part) before, the contents are not presented in order and make me confusing.