Fieldwork Methods for Audits (8 hours)

Objectives

After this course attendees should have an understanding of:

        How planning relates to the audit plan/program and audit fieldwork

        The purpose of the fieldwork field of an audit

        Various fieldwork methods that result in sufficient and appropriate evidence

Short Description

Fieldwork is so much fun! In this course attendees will learn about how audit planning relates to audit fieldwork. Using real-world government audit examples, this course will cover various quantitative and qualitative fieldwork methods as well as expectations for quality audit evidence.  

Course Outline

Overview

Getting from planning to fieldwork

What the Standards say about fieldwork and audit evidence

Purpose of audit fieldwork

Overview of fieldwork methodologies/options 

Cost/benefit of various fieldwork methods

Exercise 1: Which method should you use?          

In depth: Data collection methods

        Collecting information from people

        Qualitative analysis

        Quantitative analysis

                    Considerations

                    Data analysis/mining (side bars: analysis tools, verifying data reliability)

           Exercise 2: Sampling vs analyzing the universe

           Exercise 3: Potential fieldwork steps based on audit objective(s)

High quality audit evidence

Wrap up