"So, Dani, seriously, what exactly am I going to be doing today?"
"I am serious, Tyler. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing much less what I'm supposed to have you do. Like I said . . . Katelyn hasn't told me anything more about this assignment than she has told you."
"Seriously?" Instead of responding to her persistent subordinate, Dani shook her head and looked away.
Dani Morgan and Tyler Christian were on the audit staff of a Big Four accounting firm's Dallas office. The two auditors were assigned to the audit engagement team for Bennett Petroleum, a publicly-owned oil and gas firm. Dani, an audit senior with nearly three years of experience, was supervising the fieldwork on the Bennett audit, while Tyler, an audit associate who had been with the firm for 15 months, was serving as her primary assistant. For the past two weeks, they had been working on various planning and other preliminary audit tasks at Bennett's headquarters in a Dallas suburb; December 31 was the company's fiscal year-end.
Less than 24 hours earlier, on Friday afternoon, Katelyn Light, the audit manager on the Bennett audit team, had told Dani and Tyler she needed their assistance on an assignment she had just been given by Juan Suarez, the Bennett audit engagement partner. As instructed by Katelyn, the two of them had arrived at 8 a.m. at a large industrial park on the northern side of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, nearly 30 miles from the downtown location of their practice office. But Katelyn was nowhere to be found, and the guard at the entrance of the park would not allow them to enter because they didn't have the required security pass. So, for the past 15 minutes, the two auditors had been loitering outside the entrance. Three calls to Katelyn's cell phone had gone unanswered. They were certain the audit manager had arrived because her candy apple red convertible was sitting in the parking lot.
After an extended pause, Tyler decided to use a humorous quip in an effort to cheer up Dani, who was obviously in a bad mood. "I wonder why Light is keeping us in the dark?" The play on words did not lighten Dani's mood.
"Tyler, just like you, I have better things to do than to show up here and wander around the perimeter of some foul-smelling industrial park on a beautiful Saturday morning when I could be doing something useful. And, yes, it is Halloween, and I do have a party to go to tonight." Dani shook her head in frustration. "If I have to work on Saturday, I would rather be doing something productive on the Bennett job.
Before the two rookie audit associates show up next week, I need to develop a work schedule for them. And Juan wants to have the fraud brainstorming session on the tenth of November, so I need to begin collecting some of the information needed for that meeting." Dani gritted her teeth as she once more shook her head. "But, nooooo,here I am, in scenic north Dallas, having no inkling of what I am supposed to be doing or how long I will be doing it." Tyler was now convinced that Dani knew as little about their weekend assignment as he did. "Well, you would think Katelyn would at least respond to the voicemail messages we have left her."
"Yeah, no kidding," Dani muttered.

Questions
1. What type of professional service engagement was the assignment completed by the team of auditors led by Katelyn Light? Defend your answer. Which professional standards are applicable to such engagements?
2. Compare the overall goals of the two teams of auditors in this case. In what ways were those goals similar? How did they differ?
3. Under what circumstances, if any, can an audit firm rely on the audit procedures performed by another audit firm?
4. Identify the weaknesses in PHC’s inventory-taking procedures. What implications did those weaknesses have for the two teams of auditors?
5. Do you believe that it was appropriate for Juan Suarez to insist that Dani Morgan and Tyler Christian not be informed of the complete nature of their PHC assignment? Why or why not?
6. Assess the conduct of Katelyn Light, Dani Morgan, and Tyler Christian. Do you believe they behaved “professionally” during the PHC assignment? Defend your answer. Did any other accountants or auditors in this case behave less than professionally? Explain.