[spineshank77]

Hello Everyone, so I give my exam in less than 48 hours and was hoping you guys can help me on 2 questions that I couldnt get an answer to:

1) I understand that under GAAS, you are allowed to give an opinion on certain F/S and not others and can issue different opinions as well. but what I dont understand is when does the issue of “piecemeal opinions” become an issue? isnt it a piecemeal issue to give different opinions on the same F/S?

2) Under GAGAS and SIngle Audit governmental reporting you are requested to give opinions on internal control over financial reporting and internal control over compliance? is my understanding right? do you give an opinion or do you only report on them?

It seems that I understand better from fellow students than my review course!

FAR: 79, what im done??
REG: 75
AUD: 75
BEC: 77

I would rather score four 75's than three 99's and a 74

[Phllop]

Ok I could be wrong so hopefully somebody backs me up, but to my understanding:

Piecemeal opinions are on certain identified ELEMENTS in the F/S, not certain statements. Not sure if that answers your question?

For GAGAS you must obtain an understanding of the design of controls and determine whether they have been implemented. Also, perhaps more importantly, give a written report on the auditor's understanding of IC and the assessment of control risk in all audits. So with that said you're just reporting on the effectiveness of IC not giving an opinion on it.

REG: 85
AUD: 74, 85
FAR: 74 (sigh)
BEC: 80 (don't even ask me how)

When I say C-P you say 'Ayyyyy show me the money'
-PO

[Zaiitz3]

Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, but I was under the impression you were NOT allowed to offer different opinions for different statements because it would overshadow an emphasis, qualification, disclaimer or adverse opinion on the ones with a “lower” opinion. You can offer an opinion on a single financial statement, or a couple of them, but then you MUST specify as such in the auditor's report.

@Phllop, I believe you are correct. It's on a certain element or account, but cannot be something as major as “Net Income” since, really, you should be auditing the financial statements if you need an assurance to Net Income.

*New York*
AUD 74, 88! 04/02/12
BEC 75! 08/30/12
FAR 68, 73, 83! 10/27/12
REG 80! 11/24/12

DONE!!!

"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.” - Wayne Dyer

[Phllop]

Yeah piecemeal options are no longer allowed

REG: 85
AUD: 74, 85
FAR: 74 (sigh)
BEC: 80 (don't even ask me how)

When I say C-P you say 'Ayyyyy show me the money'
-PO

[Anonymous]

This is a somewhat old post, but I just came across it looking for what the heck piecemeal opinions were referring to.

In case anyone else is later searching for this topic, here's what I've discovered:

I'm studying with Wiley, and piecemeal opinions are addressed on pages 326 and 327 of the 2012 audit text.

My understanding is that you CAN give different opinions on individual financial statements if a scope limitation exists.

However, you CANNOT report on specific or “certain identified” accounts or disclosures within or accompanying the financial statements because that may overshadow the adverse or disclaimer opinion.

MCQs 68 and 69 brought this subject to my attention and I was totally confused on to what the difference between them was until I realized 68 referred to the current asset portion of the BS and 69 referred to entirely separate statements.

[momto5]

I thought you could NOT give an opinion on an individual F/S unless there was NO scope limitation. In other words, you can only give an opinion on just the balance sheet as long as all the rest of the F/S are also available for you to review. If some of the records are unavailable, you are not supposed to give an opinion on just one. I agree with the piecemeal explanation.

FAR - 92 (4/27/12)
AUD - 96 (7/17/12)
BEC - 92 (8/30/12)
REG - 91 (11/12/12)

[Anonymous]

@momto5, you are right. You cannot give an opinion on an individual F/S if there is a scope limitation relating to that F/S. But, you can give an opinion on an individual F/S if there is a scope limitation on all of the F/S's taken as a whole and you are only able to give an opinion on specific financial statements. The example they use in the book is if you were unable to verify beginning inventory balance and therefore cannot issue an opinion on the income statement (because you can't be sure COGS is correct) but you CAN issue an opinion on the balance sheet.

[Author]

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