Research Project

This activity is aimed at students demonstrating that they have developed investigative skills in the context of auditing and Forensics. The activity must be completed to a satisfactory standard as determined.

Required:

You are required to conduct and document a business risk analysis for an Australian public company (one ASX listed company you select) and then prepare a broad audit strategy for the company for inclusion in the audit report.

Assignment Objectives:

practical experience in gaining an understanding of an auditee and the processes of conducting a detailed strategic risk analysis from an auditor perspective, and Fraud analysis from the view of a forensic accountant.
enhance your report writing skills

Approach

read background material on business risk assessment that you can find. Don’t limit yourself to the textbook. Use audit firm websites for example.

Consider the following matters and how they affect the financial statement assertions:

Circumstantial information:

key economic factors about company’s industry
stage of company’s life cycle
business success factors
notable accounting issues for this industry
legal or regulatory matters of concern
social matters

Internal information:

its primary products
company size (sales, assets, employees)
locations / segments
related parties / associates
corporate governance issues

Analyse the company’s position:

financial strength
performance trends
sources of capital
market / media responses to company news
quality of earnings
compare company to rest of industry
use industry benchmarks, ratio analysis

Outline your broad audit strategy, and forensic investigation:

identify high-risk areas of the business
identify low risk areas for the business
explain how these risk areas are reflected in the financial statements
identify significant types of transactions and transaction cycles
Will it be appropriate to reduce assessed control risk?
Use the Fraud Triangle and Fraud Scale to critically analyse your listed company?

NOTE:

The above list does not provide an appropriate structure for your report and is not intended to be exhaustive. It is merely a list of some things to consider and provides a default minimum task list.

How much weight you place on any matter is an exercise in your judgement and you are expected to use your initiative in developing your own assessment.

Grading Criteria (20%)

Originality (non-annual report material)

Relevant matters

Depth

Understanding of Business

Understanding of Industry

Analytical Review/Fraud Analysis

Industry Comparisons

Attention to detail

Depth/quality of interpretation

Conclusions and audit strategy (4%)

Supported by the analysis

Plausibility

Usefulness for audit planning

Identifies important audit matters

Indexing

Executive summary

Physical layout

Ordering of material

FAQs

Can I choose a listed company from any industry?

Yes, you can choose any ASX listed company from any industry.

When should I start this assignment?

You can start any time, however to complete this task, knowledge of the audit risk model is required and that model is only first covered in Topic 6.

Where do students usually fail in this assessment?

It is important to recognise the grading criteria (%) and where marks are assigned. Do not provide information that is not requested above.

Is prior knowledge of accounting assumed?

This assignment requires knowledge of how to perform a financial statement analysis and how to interpret the results of that analysis.

PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT ??
find the cost of your paper
Is this question part of your assignment?
Place order
Posted on May 13, 2016Author TutorCategories Question, Questions