[Anonymous]

Which of the following factors would least likely affect the extent of the auditor’s consideration of the client’s internal controls?
a. The expected deviation rate from the control.
b. The extent to which other tests provide evidence about the same assertion.
c. The amount of time budgeted to complete the engagement.
d. How frequently the control is performed.
The correct answer is C
I feel like i didnt even understand the question.
What does “extent of the auditor’s consideration of the client’s internal controls” mean?

[Anonymous]

Audit is a goofy subject, but if you flip the question on it's head you realize that all those factors play into the auditor making an initial impression of the client's internal control (I'm assuming here that they are not talking about testing the controls)

Choice A..if the auditor is expecting a lot of deviations(errors) then they'll have to do more substantive tests. Maybe the accounting department has extremely high turnover and hire inexperienced people. You'd expect more misstatements from the client, so that plays into what the auditor expects to see in the accounting records.

Consideration of the control usually occurs during the planning phase where the auditor just looks at the big picture of the client. Are they doing/implementing policies to ensure that no fraud or mistakes are making it to the financial statements? And time to complete the audit should not be a factor, especially if there is only one way to get that impression, and other tests cant compensate.

Not sure if that makes sense, but you almost have to talk through it

[fragchild]

You just need to take the key parts of the question and not overthink it. It can be simplified to the which is the least likely to affect internal controls.

a,b and c all affect internal controls. Whereas the time budgeted (i.e. 4 weeks) to complete the audit affects it the least

[Author]

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