Course details

Satisfy Client and CPA Firm Needs

The objective of this section is to identify ways to maintain and improve good communication with clients and partners. There is also an opportunity to critique actual practice situations involving poor communications.

Apply Analytical Procedures

This session emphasizes the values and uses of analytical procedures for auditing and review services and how these tests can be used to help a client run their business better as a part of a client–services-oriented approach. Participants will learn how to correctly apply the SSARS and SAS requirements to clients through several cases covering ratio analysis and analytical procedures.

Conduct Small Audits

Previous learning about the financial accounting process, transaction cycles, and the nature of generally accepted accounting principles will be reinforced and applied to the audit of a small client. Understanding the client and their industry; assessing control risk, inherent risk, and risk of fraud; linking assessed risks to resulting evidence; designing the most efficient audit approach; and making management suggestions on small jobs are all addressed in the case application.

Perform Review Service Engagements

In this session participants explore both the SSARS requirements and the practical problems encountered in applying them to compilations and reviews. A major case study is used to help participants understand differences in the nature and extent of procedures necessary for completing reviews and compilations, including analytical procedures, working papers and common GAAP problems. Participants will also learn how to use review service engagement forms and check lists more effectively.

Draft Financial Statements and Footnotes

Participants will review and recommend changes in the format, terminology, and account groupings for a set of financial statements included in a major case study. Adherence to firm policies and utilization of professional judgement in adapting to varying circumstances will be emphasized in full group discussion.

Using a reporting checklist, small groups of participants will also organize and outline the contents of footnotes for the case study financial statements. Participants will evaluate an accountant’s report for a review service engagement using the facts contained in the case materials. They will also complete an engagement reporting exercise to become familiar with the different types of reports needed under differing circumstances.

Improve Corporate Tax Knowledge

Completion of the major case in this module requires that participants identify and resolve numerous tax issues in order to determine a small business client’s tax liability for the year. A tax return preparation and review checklist for C corporations is provided as an aid. Other cases in the module require that participants solve problems involving unethical tax return preparation, methods of depreciating assets and determining the appropriate form of a business organization.