You are responsible for developing and presenting training material on internal control sampling for staff auditors. After presenting it, you receive several questions from staff auditors. Explain how you would answer each question.
a. If population size has little impact on sample size for internal control testing, are there any advantages to using statistical sampling for internal control testing?
b. Is it always better to sample more items than fewer items?
c. How do I decide which internal controls to test? It seems like it would take a lot of time to test all controls.
d. How do I modify the sampling plan for an audit of internal controls over the financial reporting process instead of an audit of internal controls over the financial statement?
e. Can I skip internal control testing completely and simply perform substantive tests? It seems like internal control testing is a lot of work and may not be effective if the actual deviations are more than the tolerable deviations.
f. Can I do all internal control testing at year-end? I have a client who does no interim work.