[JLloyd829]

Hello, I’m running to an issue that is pretty confusing to me in Becker:
So for Issuers you are when you have a Qualified Opinion (Material Problem) due to GAAS you’re to use a “Middle Paragraph” before the Qualified Opinion paragraph to denote the substantive reasons behind the problem… but when you have a Disclaimer of Opinion (Very Material Problem) that converts to an “Explanatory Paragraph”? When looking at section 3.2.1 of M1 in the Auditing section a Disclaimer of Opinion is not noted as a required use of this… Also to continue my confusion w hen you go to Module 8 for M1 and you have a change from Unqualified Opinion in prior Year to Current Year Qualified or Unqualified Current year and Disclaimer Prior year it also notes to use an Explanatory Paragraph. Mind you that this is not a “Updated Opinion” which would make you use one of these???
Is a Middle paragraph and Explanatory paragraph the same thing?

[DoubleBogey]

I do not know but I do know that the AICPA is the one administering the exams so the AICPA SAS's for nonissuers is almost exclusively the entire exam.

[Joetse]

LOL. If anything, it's AICPA that's stupid for not following the format of PCAOB, which came first. For disclaimers for issuers, you always just deleted the scope paragraph because there is no scope, because you are not taking responsibility for any of the work, you are not giving an opinion at all. For non-issuers, you are not giving an opinion either for a disclaimer of opinion, and in the Accountant's responsibility paragraph you're just stating that “we were not able to obtain sufficient appropriate evidence”, and then you repeat the same thing in the actual Disclaimer of Opinion. Really, I think the Accountant's Responsibility paragraph should be omitted just like it is for issuers for consistency purposes across standards. That would make it less confusing to people. For the second issue, that is a qualified scope situation where the subject matter of the qualification is a scope limitation (could not ascertain/satisfy ourselves as to opening inventory balances), so you'd have a modification of scope paragraph, a middle paragraph preceding opinion, and disclaim the opinion paragraph.

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