ACCA AA Syllabus D. Audit Evidence - Using Assertions - Past Papers ^{2 / 4}

Trombone Co (Trombone) operates a chain of hotels across the country. Trombone employs in excess of 250 permanent employees and its year end is 31 August 2014. You are the audit supervisor of Viola & Co and are currently reviewing the documentation of Trombone’s payroll system, detailed below, in preparation for the interim audit.

Trombone’s payroll system

Permanent employees work a standard number of hours per week as specified in their employment contract. However, when the hotels are busy, staff can be requested by management to work additional shifts as overtime. This can either be paid on a monthly basis or taken as days off.

Employees record any overtime worked and days taken off on weekly overtime sheets which are sent to the payroll department. The standard hours per employee are automatically set up in the system and the overtime sheets are entered by clerks into the payroll package, which automatically calculates the gross and net pay along with relevant deductions. These calculations are not checked at all. Wages are increased by the rate of inflation each year and the clerks are responsible for updating the standing data in the payroll system.

Employees are paid on a monthly basis by bank transfer for their contracted weekly hours and for any overtime worked in the previous month. If employees choose to be paid for overtime, authorisation is required by department heads of any overtime in excess of 30% of standard hours. If employees choose instead to take days off, the payroll clerks should check back to the ‘overtime worked’ report; however, this report is not always checked.

The ‘overtime worked’ report, which details any overtime recorded by employees, is run by the payroll department weekly and emailed to department heads for authorisation. The payroll department asks department heads to only report if there are any errors recorded. Department heads are required to arrange for overtime sheets to be authorised  by an alternative responsible official if they are away on annual leave; however, there are instances where this arrangement has not occurred.

The payroll package produces a list of payments per employee; this links into the bank system to produce a list of automatic payments. The finance director reviews the total list of bank transfers and compares this to the total amount to be paid per the payroll records; if any issues arise then the automatic bank transfer can be manually changed by the finance director.

Required:

Describe substantive procedures you should perform at the final audit to confirm the completeness and accuracy of Trombone Co’s payroll expense. (6 marks)

Bluesberry hospital is located in a country where healthcare is free, as the taxpayers fund the hospitals which are owned by the government. Two years ago management reviewed all aspects of hospital operations and instigated a number of measures aimed at improving overall ‘value for money’ for the local community.

Management have asked that you, an audit manager in the hospital’s internal audit department, perform a review over the measures which have been implemented.

Bluesberry has one centralised buying department and all purchase requisition forms for medical supplies must be forwarded here. Upon receipt the buying team will research the lowest price from suppliers and a purchase order is raised. This is then passed to the purchasing director, who authorises all orders. The small buying team receive in excess of 200 forms a day.

The human resources department has had difficulties with recruiting suitably trained staff. Overtime rates have been increased to incentivise permanent staff to fill staffing gaps, this has been popular, and reliance on expensive temporary staff has been reduced. Monitoring of staff hours had been difficult but the hospital has implemented time card clocking in and out procedures and these hours are used for overtime payments as well.

The hospital has invested heavily in new surgical equipment, which although very expensive, has meant that more operations could be performed and patient recovery rates are faster. However, currently there is a shortage of appropriately trained medical staff. A capital expenditure committee has been established, made up of senior managers, and they plan and authorise any significant capital expenditure items.

Required:

Describe TWO substantive procedures the external auditor of Bluesberry should adopt to verify EACH of the following assertions in relation to an entity’s property, plant and equipment;

(i) Valuation;
(ii) Completeness; and
(iii) Rights and obligations.

Note: Assume that the hospital adopts International Financial Reporting Standards. (6 marks)

As part of your work as external auditor you are reviewing the non-current assets audit programme of the internal auditors and notice that the basis of their testing is a representative sample of purchase invoices. They use this to test entries in the non-current assets register and the updating movements on the annual budget.

Required:

Explain why this is not a good test for completeness

List and explain FOUR assertions from ISA 500 Audit Evidence that relate to the recording of classes of transactions. (4 marks)

ISA 500 Audit Evidence explains types of audit evidence that the auditor can obtain.

Required:

State, and briefly explain, four types of audit evidence that can be obtained by the auditor.