Audit Program

Planning of Audit work is called Audit Program. Preparation of Audit program is one of the preliminary steps before commencing the work of Audit. Audit program can be regarded as blue print of Audit work.

Preparing audit program before the commencing of the audit work is very important. The features of the audit program are as follows;

1. Audit program must be in the written form.

2. Audit program must be prepared by the Auditor.

3. It should cover all the aspects of the audit work.

4. It should show the division of work among the audit staff.

5. It should be of flexible nature.

Always there will be some objectives for every work that we generally do. The objectives define the purpose and this is really important to analyse. The objectives of the audit program are as follows;

1. To have uniformity in procedures.
2. To control and to co-ordinate work of the audit staff.
3. To avoid omition of work.
4. To complete the audit work within desired period.
5. To give instructions to the audit staff.
6. To fix up responsibility if anything goes wrong.

Auditing is important for every organization. That is in-fact a mandatory work for every company to monitor and analyze its own performance. The audit program to frame the audit work should contain the following for clear understanding of the final reports.

1. Name of the undertaking.
2. Nature of the business of the undertaking.
3. Internal check system which is being operated in the undertaking.
4. List of the books to be verified.
5. Rights and duties of the audit staff members.
6. Opening and closing dates of the audit work.

• In presence of the audit program, audit work can be completed within desired period without any delay.
• When audit program is prepared in a fair manner, there will be no omition of works.
• Audit program fixes duty to every audit staff member. Therefore if anything goes wrong it is easy to fix up responsibility. That person to whom that piece of work is entrusted will be answerable.
• In presence of Audit program, all audit staff members will follow the procedures specified by auditor. Hence there will be uniformity.
• In presence of Audit program, if any audit staff member goes on leave, the work to be done by him can be entrusted to some other person very easily because the work is definitely known.
• Audit program facilitates the junior audit staff members.

• In case where audit program is prepared there will be daily in output, as a result audit staff members have to speed up their work. It perhaps might reduces the quality of audit work.
• In presence of audit program work of audit staff becomes mechanical and monotonous. There will be no initiative. Every staff member has to follow the procedure specified by the auditor. There might be no chance to show efficiency.
• A single audit program is not suitable to audit of all types of undertakings.
• At times it may not be possible to cover all aspects of audit work in the audit program.