Big4Guy

Nature, timing and extent of our test of controls determine whether the evidence is effective for internal control assesssment or not. When we consider the Nature of our test of controls, the procedures are influenced by the type of activity being tested. To take an example, for IT systems and IT environment, internal control emphasis would be more on general IT controls, execption reports etc. Thus stress would be more on inquiry, observation and inspection techniques. On the other hand, in case of manual controls, stres can be on inspection of documents created as well as reperformance of controls,

For each of the test of controls namely inquiry, observation, examination and reperformance, a combination of above is much more effective than an single procedure. Thus, inquiries can be combined with observation of the process. Inspection of documents to check whether same have been initialed or not can be combined with observation of the documents being initialed. Similarly, tasks such as examination of documents can be coupled with reperformance where totals, balances etc can be verfied seperately. A combination of procedures thus provides much more persuasive evidence than a single procedure.

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