Assurance Services

Assurance services are independent professional services that improve the quality of information, or its context, for decision makers. These services can apply to both financial and nonfinancial information. The primary goal of assurance is to provide credibility to the subject matter, helping users make informed decisions. Examples include cybersecurity assessments and evaluations of investment policies.

Major Elements and Boundaries of the AICPA's Definition of Assurance Services

• Independence: When providing audit services, accountants must be independent of the client; they cannot have any relationship with management nor can they have any financial interest in the company (e.g., an invemestment).

• Professional Services: Our work involves the exercise of judgment guided by education, training, and experience.

• Improving the Quality of Information or its Context: The value we provide is in verifying the reliability and accuracy of information so that people can make decisions with confidence in the information they are using to make those decisions.

• For Decision Makers: Decision makers are our consumers.

Attestation Engagements

Attestation engagements is where an engagement where a practitioner is requested to examine whether management's assertions about some type of subject matter can be relied upon.

Financial Statement Auditing

Auditing is a systematic process of objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertions about economic actions and events to ascertain the degree of correspondence between the assertions and established criteria and communicating the results to interested users.

The purpose of an audit is to provide financial statement users with an opinion by the auditor on whether the financial statement are presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with an applicable financial reporting framework, which enhances the degree of confidence that intended users can plance in the financial statements. An audit conducted in accordance with GAAS and relevant ethical requirements enables the auditor to form that opinion.