Statement on auditing standards, 039

              Statement on
Auditing Standards
Issued by the Auditing Standards Board
AICPA American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants
June 1981
39
Audit Sampling
( Supersedes Statement on Auditing Standards No. 1, sections 320A,
" Relationship of Statistical Sampling to Generally Accepted Auditing Standards,"
and 320B, " Precision and Reliability for Statistical Sampling in Auditing.")
1. Audit sampling is the application of an audit procedure to less
than 100 percent of the items within an account balance or class of
transactions for the purpose of evaluating some characteristic of the
balance or class. 1 This Statement provides guidance for planning, per­forming,
and evaluating audit samples.
2. The auditor often is aware of account balances and transactions
that may be more likely to contain errors. 2 He considers this knowl­edge
in planning his procedures, including audit sampling. The audi­tor
usually will have no special knowledge about other account
balances and transactions that, in his judgment, will need to be tested
to fulfill his audit objectives. Audit sampling is especially useful in
these cases.
1There may be other reasons for an auditor to examine less than 100 percent of
the items comprising an account balance or class of transactions. For example,
an auditor may examine only a few transactions from an account balance or
class of transactions to ( a) gain an understanding of the nature of an entity's
operations or ( b) clarify his understanding of the design of the entity's internal
accounting control system. In such cases, the guidance in this statement is not
applicable.
2For purposes of this Statement, errors includes both errors and irregularities as
defined in SAS No. 16, The Independent Auditor's Responsibility for the Detec­tion
of Errors or Irregularities.
Copyright © 1981 by the
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Inc.
1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N. Y. 10036
1234567890 AudS 8987654321