In any business, especially the one that I work for, there are certain functions that have to be done in the daily flow of the business. Auditing is no exception to this. I work in the accounting department for the Census Bureau, which is a federal agency. In specific, I work for the Quality Assurance and Call Team side of accounting in this financial division. This means that one of my primary functions is the pre-certify invoices, travel, and any other miscellaneous payment that is required. Pre-certification is just another way of saying audit in our division. Having these functions as a primary job duty, it is imperative to be aware of the generally accepted auditing standards, their application to financial, operational and compliance audits, as well as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
The Generally Accepted Auditing Standards are standards that were created in order to help to unify the auditing techniques and performance in order to create quality in the accounting and auditing profession. For the United States, these are standards that were created by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. According to Modern auditing: assurance services and the integrity of financial reporting, there are 10 standards which are vary by categories such as general, reporting, and field work. (Boynton, W. & Johnson, R., 2007) In reference to how these standards apply to the financial, operational, and compliance auditing in companies, these standards are guidelines that should be applied by auditors and any of their assistants that deal with financial, operational, and compliance auditing. These standards address the expectations of how reports should be stated for financial statements, any errors or principles that are lacked, any issues with disclosures, as well as any opinion that needs to be stated in regards to the financial...