SAS No. 01 Summary of Generally Accepted Auditing Standards

Status

Revised by Auditing Standards Committee in Taiwan on 25 January, 2000.

Summary

The general, field work, and reporting standards are as follows:

• The auditor must have adequate technical training and proficiency to perform the audit.
• The auditor must maintain independence in mental attitude in all matters relating to the audit.
• The auditor must exercise due professional care in the performance of the audit and the preparation of the report.

• The auditor must adequately plan the work and must properly supervise any assistants.
• The auditor must obtain a sufficient understanding of the entity and its environment, including its internal control, to assess the risk of material misstatement of the financial statements whether due to error or fraud, and to design the nature, timing, and extent of further audit procedures.
• The auditor must obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence, and document in audit working papers, by performing audit procedures to afford a reasonable basis for an opinion regarding the financial statements under audit.

• The auditor must state in the auditor's report whether the financial statements are presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
• The auditor must identify in the auditor's report those circumstances in which such principles have not been consistently observed in the current period in relation to the preceding period.
• When the auditor determines that informative disclosures are not reasonably adequate, the auditor must so state in the auditor's report.
• The auditor must either express an opinion regarding the financial statements, taken as a whole, or state that an opinion cannot be expressed, in the auditor's report. When the auditor cannot express an overall opinion, the auditor should state the reasons in the auditor's report. In all cases where an auditor's name is associated with financial statements, the auditor should clearly indicate the character of the auditor's work, if any, and the degree of responsibility the auditor is taking, in the auditor's report.

The nature of the above standards and the SASs requires the auditor to exercise professional judgment in applying them. Materiality and audit risk also underlie the application of the above standards and the SASs, particularly those related to field work and reporting. When, in rare circumstances, the auditor departs from a presumptively mandatory requirement, the auditor must document in the working papers his or her justification for the departure and how the alternative procedures performed in the circumstances were sufficient to achieve the objectives of the presumptively mandatory requirement.

Effective date

This Statement is effective from 25 January, 2000.