Advanced Audit Planning and Evidence Evaluation Training Course

Course overview

Audit teams are increasingly expected to justify why each planned procedure addresses a defined risk, how evidence supports the audit conclusion, and where professional judgement has been applied. Weak risk assessment, generic audit programmes, inconsistent documentation, and overreliance on management explanations can lead to inefficient fieldwork, review points, missed misstatements, and difficulty defending conclusions to partners, audit committees, regulators, or quality reviewers. This course addresses the practical decisions that distinguish a technically compliant audit file from a well-designed, risk-responsive engagement.

Participants work through advanced audit planning from acceptance and continuance through materiality, risk assessment, audit strategy, detailed audit programmes, and evidence evaluation. They learn to apply ISA 315 and ISA 330 to identify and assess risks of material misstatement; link assertions, controls, risks, and substantive procedures; set and revise materiality; design targeted sampling and data-analytics procedures; evaluate the reliability and sufficiency of audit evidence under ISA 500; and resolve contradictory evidence. Particular attention is given to significant risks, management override, estimates, related parties, going concern, and fraud indicators.

Delivery combines instructor-led technical briefings with a multi-day financial statement audit case. Participants interrogate working papers, test controls, analyse transaction data, challenge management representations, and document conclusions using audit-file quality criteria. They leave with an audit planning and evidence evaluation pack containing a planning memorandum, risk-and-assertion matrix, materiality schedule, tailored audit programme, evidence assessment log, and review-ready conclusion templates that can be adapted for their own engagements.

The course is designed for auditors who already participate in audit assignments and now need to lead planning, supervise evidence gathering, review workpapers, or defend engagement judgements. It is equally relevant to managers approving development for teams facing tighter inspection expectations, complex clients, or inconsistent audit-file quality.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Construct a risk-based audit planning memorandum that links business risks, financial statement areas, assertions, and planned responses
• Apply ISA 315 risk assessment procedures to identify inherent-risk factors and determine significant risks
• Calculate and document overall, performance, and clearly trivial materiality using quantitative and qualitative benchmarks
• Design assertion-level audit programmes that combine tests of controls, substantive analytical procedures, and tests of details
• Evaluate the reliability, relevance, and sufficiency of audit evidence using ISA 500 evidence criteria
• Use audit sampling logic and data-analytics exceptions to define populations, selections, follow-up procedures, and conclusions
• Challenge management estimates, related-party disclosures, and going-concern assumptions through corroborative evidence
• Prepare review-ready workpaper conclusions that resolve contradictory evidence and support the audit opinion

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Audit Managers — who must approve risk assessments, direct fieldwork, and clear engagement review points
• Audit Seniors and Supervisors — who translate planning decisions into targeted procedures and coach engagement teams
• External Auditors — who need defensible evidence trails for financial statement audit conclusions
• Internal Audit Managers — who plan risk-based assurance engagements and evaluate evidence quality
• Financial Reporting Managers — who prepare schedules and explanations that withstand audit challenge
• Audit Quality Reviewers — who assess whether audit files demonstrate appropriate professional judgement

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience on at least one financial statement audit or internal audit engagement and understand the purpose of audit assertions, materiality, internal controls, substantive testing, and working papers. Familiarity with basic financial statements, Excel formulas and filters, and the audit cycle from planning through reporting is assumed. Participants should be able to read an audit programme and interpret a trial balance. Prior use of CaseWare or IDEA is helpful but not required; exercises provide guided templates. This is not a beginner course, and it does not require programming, advanced statistics, or a professional accountancy qualification.

Training methodology

The five-day programme uses short instructor-led sessions to establish the relevant ISA requirements, followed by progressively more demanding work on a single audit case. Participants build planning documentation from client background materials, a trial balance, process narratives, control evidence, board papers, and transaction extracts. Small groups debate risk ratings, materiality decisions, evidence reliability, and appropriate responses to exceptions before comparing their conclusions against review criteria. The final day includes a file-review simulation and an individual application plan for an upcoming or current engagement.

Course outline

Day 1: Risk-responsive audit planning

• Audit acceptance, continuance, and engagement risk assessment
• ISA 315 risk assessment model and inherent-risk factors
• Understanding the entity, business model, and external environment
• Financial statement assertions and transaction-cycle mapping
• Identifying risks of material misstatement at assertion level
• Determining significant risks and presumed management override risk
• Documenting the overall audit strategy and planning memorandum

Workshop: Participants analyse a client briefing pack and produce an initial entity-risk profile, assertion map, and draft overall audit strategy.

Day 2: Materiality, controls, and audit responses

• Selecting materiality benchmarks and applying qualitative materiality factors
• Calculating overall, performance, and clearly trivial materiality
• Revising materiality when audit findings or financial results change
• Documenting process walkthroughs and identifying key controls
• Testing control design, implementation, and operating effectiveness
• Linking control reliance decisions to ISA 330 audit responses
• Building risk-and-response matrices for major account balances

Workshop: Participants prepare a materiality schedule and risk-and-control response matrix for revenue, receivables, and journal entries.

Day 3: Designing targeted audit procedures

• Designing tests of details by assertion and source document
• Developing substantive analytical procedures with predictable relationships
• Audit sampling populations, sampling units, and selection methods
• Sample-size drivers, tolerable misstatement, and expected misstatement
• Using Microsoft Excel to profile populations and investigate exceptions
• Using IDEA for duplicate, gap, stratification, and outlier testing
• Designing procedures for fraud risks and management override

Workshop: Participants analyse a sales and journal-entry data extract, define testing populations, and produce a targeted audit programme with exception follow-up steps.

Day 4: Evaluating audit evidence and difficult judgements

• ISA 500 criteria for evidence reliability, relevance, and sufficiency
• Evaluating external confirmations, management representations, and third-party evidence
• Corroborating management estimates and testing estimation uncertainty
• Assessing related-party transactions and disclosure completeness
• Evaluating going-concern forecasts, covenants, and mitigating actions
• Resolving contradictory evidence and uncorrected misstatements
• Documenting professional judgement and consultation conclusions

Workshop: Participants evaluate an evidence file containing conflicting documents, estimate assumptions, and covenant forecasts, then write a supported conclusion and escalation note.

Day 5: Review-ready documentation and audit-file defence

• CaseWare Working Papers file structure and cross-referencing discipline
• Writing clear workpaper objectives, procedures, results, and conclusions
• Reviewing evidence chains from risk assessment to audit opinion
• Clearing review notes through root-cause analysis and corrective action
• Assessing misstatement aggregation and communication thresholds
• Preparing audit committee communications on significant findings
• Creating an engagement-specific audit quality improvement plan

Workshop: Participants conduct a simulated manager review of a deficient audit file and produce prioritised review notes, corrected conclusions, and a 90-day application plan.

Tools & standards covered

ISA 315 (Revised 2019), Microsoft Excel, IDEA, CaseWare Working Papers

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions