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Audit and Soups Inc. Essay

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Simply Soups Inc.: A Teaching Case Designed to Integrate the
Electronic Cash Confirmation Process into the Auditing Curriculum
ABSTRACT: Simply Soups Inc., a producer of organic canned soups, has hired your firm,
Putnam and Jacobs LLP, to perform a financial statement audit for the year ended December 31,
2013. Using the PCAOB’s proposed standard on confirmations and electronic confirmations, you are to complete the testing of the cash balance reported by Simply Soups Inc. at year-end. Today, a majority of large banks require auditors to use electronic cash confirmation requests and, as a result, mostly all large audit firms use them. When using electronic confirmation requests, audit firms typically rely on a third-party …show more content…

However, in order to obtain stronger or more persuasive evidence, the “bank balance” reported by the
Company on the bank reconciliations must be confirmed directly with each bank. In general, evidence obtained from an independent source, such as a bank, is considered more reliable than evidence obtained from an internal source at the audit client (PCAOB 2010a).
[Insert Exhibit 3]

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Please note that although the testing of the bank reconciliation provides further audit evidence over management’s assertion of existence and completeness for cash, this procedure is beyond the scope of this case and is not required to complete this assignment.

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Although confirming the Company’s cash balance with each bank generally provides reliable evidence, the confirmation process is subject to the risk of interception and alteration of confirmation responses (PCAOB 2010b). When an unauthorized individual attempts to intercept and alter a confirmation response, the ultimate intention of the individual is likely to overstate the Company’s cash balance. This risk is present regardless of whether confirmation requests are sent electronically or on paper (PCAOB 2010b). Thus, when completing the external confirmation process, the professional standards require

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