According to ISA 520 Analytical Procedures, analytical procedures include the analysis of significant indicators and trends, the final study of fluctuations and relationships that are inconsistent with other information or forecast values.

The standard specifies that the auditor must apply analytical procedures when planning and performing the overall audit review. There are the following purposes of applying analytical procedures: to assist the auditor in planning the nature, timing and extent of audit procedures. As substantive procedures as a general review of financial statements at the final stage of the audit.

ISA 520 describes the characteristics, methods and application levels of analytical procedures:

The use of analytical procedures in planning an audit allows you to obtain information about the client's business and identify areas of maximum risk. In doing so, the auditor uses various financial and non-financial information. In order to apply analytical procedures in substantive testing, the auditor must obtain appropriate analytical data from management when performing analytical procedures, the following factors should be considered. the purpose of applying analytical procedures and the degree of their reliability type of enterprise and degree of detail availability of financial and non-financial information reliability of this information significance of information source and information comparability of information information obtained during previous checks

the results of analytical procedures during the general review at the final stage of the audit should coincide with the general opinion of the auditor regarding the organization of the client's business, as well as confirm his general opinion on the reliability of the financial statements.

Analytical procedures in the study of unusual articles.

When performing such procedures, the auditor may identify significant changes in indicators or relationships. Moreover, these indicators may contradict other evidence obtained during the audit or forecasting values.

In international practice, when assessing the application of analytical procedures, the term “degree of reliability” is used - this is the degree to which one should rely on the results of analytical procedures; when applying analytical procedures, there is always a risk that relationships between indicators will be revealed in their process in the presence of significant misstatements of financial information.

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International Standard on Auditing 520 Analytical Procedures

ISA 520 addresses the auditor's use of analytical procedures as substantive and pre-audit procedures that assist the auditor in reaching a final conclusion on financial statements and should be read in the context of ISA 200, The Independent Auditor's Overall Objectives and Conducting an Audit in Accordance with with international auditing standards.

Objectives of the auditor:

• in the course of applying substantive analytical procedures, obtain appropriate and reliable audit evidence;
• develop and perform analytical procedures near the end of the audit that can assist the auditor in forming a final conclusion on the financial statements about whether the financial statements are consistent with the auditor's understanding of the entity.

The term "analytical procedures" means the evaluation of financial information by analyzing the existence of possible relationships between financial and non-financial information. Analytical procedures also include consideration, if necessary, of identified dependencies that are inconsistent with other available information or differ materially from expected values.

In developing and performing substantive analytical procedures, the auditor must:

• determine the applicability of a particular analytical procedure;
• assess the reliability of the data;
• develop the auditor's expected values ​​for accounting data or ratios and evaluate whether those values ​​are sufficiently accurate to identify a misstatement that, alone or when combined with other misstatements, could cause the financial statements to be materially misstated;
• determine the difference between the auditor's expected accounting data or ratios and the actual accounting.

The auditor is required to develop and perform, towards the end of the audit, analytical procedures that will assist the auditor in forming an overall conclusion about whether the financial statements are consistent with his understanding of the entity.

If analytical procedures identify dependencies that are inconsistent with other available information or differ from expected values ​​by a significant amount, the auditor should consider these discrepancies, for which:

• make inquiries to management and obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding management responses received;
• perform other audit procedures as may be necessary in the circumstances.

Audit evidence relating to management's representations can be obtained by evaluating those representations against the auditor's understanding of the entity and its environment and other audit evidence obtained during the audit.

The need to perform other audit procedures may arise when, for example, management is unable to provide an explanation, or this explanation, along with audit evidence regarding it, cannot be considered adequate.

International Standard on Auditing 530 Audit Sampling

ISA 530 applies when the auditor decides to use audit sampling in performing audit procedures. The standard deals with the auditor's use of statistical and non-statistical sampling techniques in designing and constructing an audit sample, performing tests of controls or detailed tests, and evaluating the results of the application of sampling, and should be read in the context of ISA 200, The Independent Auditor's Overall Objectives and Conducting an Audit in Accordance with International Standards on Auditing. .

This ISA complements ISA 500, which addresses the auditor's responsibility to design and perform audit procedures in order to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to be able to draw reasonable conclusions on which to base the auditor's opinion. ISA 500 provides guidance on the means available to the auditor for selecting items for testing, one of which is the audit sample.

The objective of the auditor when using audit samples is to provide a reasonable basis for drawing conclusions about the sampled population.

For the purposes of the MCA, the following terms are used.

Audit sample – the application of audit procedures to less than 100% of the items within the population being considered by the auditor in order to enable the auditor to draw conclusions about the entire population in such a way that all elements of the sample have an equal probability of being selected.

Aggregate - The entire set of information on which the audit sample is based and on which the auditor wishes to draw conclusions.

Selective Risk - the risk that the auditor's conclusions based on the sample may differ from the conclusions that would be obtained if the same procedure were applied to the entire population. Selective risk can lead to two kinds of erroneous conclusions:

• 1) in the case of control tests, that the control tests are more effective than they actually are, or in the case of detailed tests, that there is no significant misstatement when in fact there is. The auditor primarily considers this type of incorrect conclusion because it affects the effectiveness of the audit and is more likely to lead to an inappropriate audit opinion;
• 2) in the case of control tests, that control tests are less effective than they actually are, or in the case of detailed tests, that there is significant misstatement when in fact there is none. This type of incorrect conclusion affects the effectiveness of the audit because it usually results in more work being done to discover that the initial assumption is incorrect.

Risk , non-sampling , - the risk that the auditor comes to the wrong conclusion for any reasons not related to selective risk.

Anomaly - a misstatement or bias that is clearly unrepresentative of the bias or bias present in the sample.

Sample element - the individual elements that make up the aggregate.

Statistical sampling - a sampling approach that has the following characteristics: random selection of elements of the sample population and the use of probability theory to evaluate the results of the sample, measuring the risk associated with the use of the sample. A sampling method that does not meet these requirements is considered non-statistical sample.

Stratification - the process of dividing a population into sub-populations, each of which is a group of sample items that share the same characteristics (often a cost value).

Acceptable distortion - A monetary amount determined by the auditor, with respect to which the auditor obtains a reasonable, appropriate level of assurance that the actual misstatement that exists in the aggregate does not exceed the monetary amount established by the auditor.

Acceptable level of deviations - the level of deviations from established internal control procedures established by the auditor for which the auditor obtains a reasonable, appropriate level of assurance that the actual level of deviations occurring in the aggregate does not exceed the acceptable level of deviations established by him.

In determining the type of audit sample, the auditor should consider the objectives of the audit procedures and the characteristics of the population from which the sample will be drawn.

The auditor is required to determine a sample size sufficient to reduce sampling risk to an acceptably low level so that each sample item has an equal probability of being selected.

The auditor is required to perform procedures appropriate to the purpose of the audit for each item selected. If an audit procedure is not applicable to a given selective element, then the auditor should perform it in relation to the element that replaces this one. If the auditor is unable to apply the audit procedures developed or acceptable alternative procedures to a selected element, the auditor should treat the element as a deviation from the prescribed control procedure in the case of tests of controls or as a misstatement in the case of detailed tests.

The auditor should consider the nature and cause of any identified deviations or misstatements and evaluate their possible impact on the objective of the audit procedure and on other areas of the audit. The auditor is required to achieve a high degree of assurance by performing additional audit procedures to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence that the deviation or misstatement does not affect the remainder of the sample. For detailed tests, the auditor must, on the basis of the identified misstatements, make a forecast of misstatements for the sample population.

The auditor must evaluate:

• what are the results of random checks;
• whether the use of the audit sample provided a reasonable basis for drawing conclusions about the population being tested.

"Financial and accounting consultations", 2006, N 11

Due to changes in the concept of audit risks (ISA 315<1>) and establishing requirements for the formation of subsequent audit procedures in accordance with the identified risks (ISA 330<1>) the new versions of the ISA included changes related to the approaches to the use of analytical procedures during the audit, as set out in the version of ISA 520, effective from December 15, 2004<1>"Analytical procedures". These changes relate primarily to the requirements established in ISA 330 and specified in ISA 520 for the use of analytical procedures during a substantive examination.

<1>ISA 315. Understanding the Entity and Its Environment and Assessing the Risks of Material Misstatement; ISA 330. The Auditor's Procedures in Response to Assessed Risks; ISA 520. Analytical Procedures, Handbook of International Auditing, Assurance, and Ethics Pronouncements. - 2006 Edition, New York: IFAC, 2006. - P. 349 - 397; 403 - 424; 463 - 470.

Analytical procedures are an assessment of the interdependencies that exist and are identified during the audit for both financial and non-financial information, and also include the study of identified deviations and relationships that are not consistent with other information under consideration or deviate strongly from forecast values. Analytical procedures are an effective tool for identifying material misstatements that are more cost effective than detailed audit tests.

As a rule, during the analysis, the auditor should determine:

• whether analytical procedures are used as the primary or sole source of evidence, or as supplementary evidence along with other audit procedures;
• whether the level of reliability of the evidence obtained through analytical procedures is consistent with the objectives of those procedures, since if analytical procedures are used as the main source of evidence, their results should provide a higher level of assurance than analysis used in conjunction with other procedures.

Analytical procedures can be applied (clause 2 of ISA 520) at various stages of the audit, namely:

• at the planning stage - to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements and determine the nature, timing and extent of procedures to be applied during the audit in accordance with the identified risks;
• substantive stages - to provide audit evidence to support specific reporting assertions;
• final stage - to assess the overall presentation of the financial statements.

Let us give examples of the most commonly used analytical procedures at various stages of the audit and consider the conditions under which, during substantive checks, the auditor is obliged to use analytical procedures exclusively in combination with detailed testing.

Analytical procedures include reviewing and comparing the financial information of a legal entity with certain data or reviewing a certain type of dependency identified for financial information (clauses 4 and 5 of ISA 520). The data compared with the reporting usually include:

• comparable information for prior periods;
• the expected results of the client's activities, such as budgets or plans, or the auditor's expectations about their values, for example, an estimate of the amount of depreciation charges;
• similar industry information, such as comparing the ratio of revenue to accounts receivable with the industry average for that ratio or with its value for other companies of comparable size in the industry.

Dependencies are usually considered to identify functional relationships in relation to:

• elements of financial information that are expected to be in line with predictable industry performance (for example, the share of operating income in revenue (gross profit margin) of a normally operating business should not be materially below the industry average);
• financial and non-financial data, for which some assumption about the existence of a relationship is tested (for example, there is usually a direct relationship between the number of employees, the level of average wages per worker and labor costs, namely, the average labor costs in the reporting period are equal to the average number of employees for the period, multiplied by the average wage per employee).

Analytical procedures at the audit planning stage

In accordance with the requirements of paragraph 8 of SA 520, the auditor is required to apply analytical procedures as risk assessment procedures in obtaining an understanding of the legal entity and its environment.

Indeed, this requirement is consistent with paragraph 7 of ISA 315, which states that in order to achieve knowledge of the legal entity and its environment, including its internal control, the auditor should perform the following risk assessment procedures:

• send requests to the company's management and other officials in the structure of the legal entity;
• conduct analytical procedures, observation and examination.

Paragraph 10 of ISA 315 lists the specific objectives of conducting analytical procedures at this stage of the audit. These procedures should be used to determine whether there are unusual transactions or events or unusual numbers, ratios or trends that may indicate matters of relevance to financial reporting and auditing.

Analytical procedures used as risk assessment procedures allow the formation of expectations (auditor's estimates) regarding the existence of certain interdependencies. The auditor considers the results of such procedures, together with other information collected, in determining the risk of material misstatement.

The auditor assesses the risks of material misstatement based on these expectations and comparing them with recorded numbers and ratios to identify unusual and unexpected results. However, since highly aggregated data are used in the analytical procedures at the planning stage, the results of such procedures provide only an initial indication of whether a material misstatement may exist.

Procedure examples

The main analytical procedures at the audit planning stage are related to the analysis of the client's own financial statements for the period under review. These include:

• analysis of changes over time of indicators of financial statements and relative coefficients associated with them;
• cross-checking the corresponding reporting indicators.

The analysis of temporary changes in indicators and ratios, as a rule, uses an ordered approach to reviewing statements, identifies and describes relationships for financial data, and as a result, the auditor's understanding of what issues should be studied in terms of identified patterns is formed.

An orderly approach is usually understood as a combination of the auditor's use of horizontal and vertical analysis of financial statements. For example, the auditor may arrange the financial information presented (vertical analysis) in the traditional format of the previous year (audited) and the current year (unaudited) along with calculations showing changes from year to year (horizontal analysis).

The above financial statements are statements in which absolute numerical values ​​are replaced by percentages showing the share of this reporting item in the final indicator. For example, the balance sheet in the above form reflects the items as a percentage of the value of gross assets, the profit and loss statement - of the amount of revenue for the reporting period. Using this approach, the auditor can identify relationships between the constituent parts of the financial statements in order to describe the financial activities of the client. Table 1 shows an example of the given reporting on extremely aggregated data.

Table 1

Analysis of the presented financial statements of OJSC

From the data in Table. 1 you can see the following:

• in the reporting period, the OJSC has developed a stable low-risk structure of liabilities, as evidenced by the high (over 50%) and increased by 1.25% share of own funds in gross liabilities in the reporting period;
• the most significant change is associated with a reduction in the volume of long-term liabilities (by 96.08%, or 25.5 times);
• volumes of short-term liabilities increased (by 44.5%, or 1.44 times).

Thus, the auditor needs to check first of all the reasons for the decrease in the volume of long-term debt and the validity of its reflection in the accounting, as well as the reasons and sources for the growth of short-term liabilities.

The ratios between the elements of financial statements can be considered by the auditor either as changes in the share of reporting items in the final indicator, or as a change in the values ​​of certain financial ratios. Let us give an example of such an analysis (Table 2).

table 2

Calculation of the OJSC financing ratio

From the analysis of the data in Table. Table 2 shows that the reduction (by 1.09 times) in the share of borrowed funds in gross liabilities led to an increase in the financing ratio, which shows how many times it is possible to repay all the debt obligations of the organization at the expense of its own funds, i.e. the auditor was able to assess the change in the reliability of the return of the organization's obligations.

Most often, at the planning stage, calculations of liquidity, solvency, profitability and turnover ratios and their comparison with the values ​​for the previous period or industry averages are used. Recently, especially when auditing IFRS statements, indicators are also used that characterize the coverage of the organization's costs at the expense of profit and its cash flows generated, for example:

• interest coverage ratio - equal to the ratio of profit before taxes to the cost of interest. The higher this indicator, the greater the guarantee of payment of interest payments from profit, i.e. own funds of the organization;
• fixed cost coverage ratio - equals earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation payments (EBITDA) to fixed cash costs (for paying interest and servicing other fixed liabilities). The higher this indicator, the greater the guarantee of payment of fixed cash costs at the expense of the organization's cash flows (revenue and other income).

Cross-checking of corresponding reporting indicators usually includes procedures for checking the correctness of the presentation of information in various sections and types of reporting, as well as identifying problematic areas of accounting, atypical transactions, and critical periods. It should be borne in mind that in the course of such an audit, the auditor needs to consider not only the financial statements of the audited entity, but also the statements submitted to regulatory authorities (for example, to tax authorities, statistics authorities, and for the reporting of securities issuers - statements to the FFMS of Russia).

The presence of errors found during cross-checks indicates, at a minimum, a general weakness of the client in the area of ​​control over the preparation of financial statements, and the identification of a directional misstatement during the analysis may indicate a risk in relation to fraudulent approach to financial reporting.

After the necessary relationships and violations are identified and described, the auditor should evaluate how these results relate to the objectives of a particular audit. Such an assessment is associated with the expression of professional judgment, which largely depends on the financial and accounting qualifications of the auditor, his experience and understanding of the client's activities.

Analytical procedures during substantive testing

The use of analytical procedures when conducting substantive checks is regulated not only by the requirements of ISA 520. First of all, the requirements of ISA 330 are important here. This standard considers, among other things, in which cases the auditor is required to conduct a substantive check and what procedures it consists of.

Since the auditor determines the risk assessment based on his professional judgment and it may not be sufficiently accurate in terms of the completeness of identifying all risks of material misstatement in relation to the accounting section under consideration, the auditor must necessarily plan and perform for all material transactions, account balances and information disclosures substantive examination, whether or not it has identified any specific risk of material misstatement for those transactions, account balances or disclosures (paragraph 49 of ISA 330).

Thus, although the auditor may determine that the risk of material misstatement for a number of transactions can be reduced to an acceptably low level by testing only the effectiveness of internal controls with respect to certain financial reporting assertions, but for each material transaction, the account balance and disclosures, the auditor cannot confine itself to such verification and is obliged to carry out substantive verification procedures.

Substantive procedures under paragraph 50 of ISA 330 include confirming financial statement items with accounting records and reviewing significant transactions and adjustments made during the financial reporting period. Verification can be carried out using both analytical procedures and detailed tests. The auditor plans and conducts these procedures or tests when checking a particular assertion in accordance with the risks identified at the planning stage.

In accordance with paragraph 51 of ISA 330, the auditor who determines that the assessed risk of material misstatement at the level of assertions in the preparation of financial statements is significant (or significant - sufficient) must apply the substantive procedures developed for him in relation to this risk.

If the auditor determines a significant risk test as a substantive test, then the auditor should conduct it either by detailed testing, or using a combination of detailed tests and substantive analytical procedures (paragraph 52 of ISA 330).

Recall that, in accordance with ISA 315, determining whether a risk is significant is a matter of professional judgment for the auditor. When forming a judgment, it is recommended to consider the following:

• whether the risk is a fraud risk;
• whether the risk is related to recent significant changes in the economic situation or changes in accounting procedures;
• how complex the entity's operations are;
• whether the risk relates to material transactions with affiliates;
• what is the degree of subjectivity in the formation of financial information related to risk, especially assuming a large amount of uncertainty;
• whether the risk is associated with significant volumes of transactions that are outside the normal business of the entity or appear unusual.

Substantive analytical procedures are generally applicable to a large volume of transactions, the results of which can be predicted into the future. In general, an auditor intending to use analytical procedures should consider the general guidance (paragraph 71 of ISA 330) used to determine the appropriateness of any substantive procedure applied in terms of determining the sufficiency and accuracy of the audit evidence obtained as a result of the applied procedure. The auditor also evaluates these properties of the evidence obtained based on his professional judgment, which, in turn, depends on:

• on the significance of potential misstatements in the premise and the likelihood of their occurrence;
• effectiveness of the control and management system in identifying risks;
• experience gained from previous audits with respect to similar potential misstatements;
• the results of audit procedures, including the detection of fraud or special errors;
• source and reliability of information;
• the persuasiveness of the audit evidence;
• understanding the company and its environment, including the internal control system.

In planning the use of analytical procedures during a substantive examination, the auditor needs to evaluate the appropriateness of using these procedures in relation to specific financial statement assertions, the reliability of the data obtained from external and internal sources, on the basis of which the amounts and ratios are calculated during the analytical procedures, the acceptable amount of variance between expected and actual data, and to determine whether the expected data are sufficiently accurate to determine whether a material misstatement exists.

The issue of how the auditor evaluates the appropriateness of analytical procedures is discussed in ISA 520. Paragraphs 12a to 12g of the revised ISA 520 provide detailed guidance on how the auditor should consider the appropriateness of applying analytical procedures, their accuracy, reliability the data used in them and an acceptable discrepancy with the actual values ​​of the analyzed indicators (see Table 3).

Table 3

Elements of an analysis of the appropriateness of analytical procedures

The auditor should also take into account the results of tests of the control system (if performed during the audit), which indicate the level of control over the preparation of information used in performing analytical procedures. If such control is found to be effective, the auditor may assess the degree of reliance on the reliability of the information as appropriate and thus consider the results of analytical procedures to be reliable evidence. Alternatively, the auditor may consider whether the information was audited in the current or previous period—ceteris paribus, audited information is generally considered to be more reliable than unaudited information.

Procedure examples

Typical analytical procedures carried out in the course of a substantive examination also apply to the analysis of changes in financial statements over time.

The most commonly used procedures are:

• in studying the dynamics of turnover on certain accounting accounts in order to identify critical periods that require closer attention during verification, for example, detailed testing;
• identifying the most significant sub-accounts or transactions accumulated on a particular account or in the reporting section, in respect of which it is also worth conducting detailed testing;
• comparison of actual indicators of financial statements with forecast indicators independently determined by the auditor.

Examples of analytical procedures commonly used in the course of a substantive check when confirming the balance for individual reporting sections are given in Table. four.

Table 4

Analytical procedures used in substantive verification of individual sections of the financial statements

Analytical procedures in the preparation of the final review at the end of the audit

Paragraph 13 of SA 520 requires the auditor to apply analytical procedures at or near the end of the audit in reaching an overall conclusion about whether the financial statements are consistent with the auditor's understanding of the entity being audited.

If, in the course of performing these procedures, the auditor concludes that risks of material misstatement that the auditor has not previously observed exist, it may be necessary to reconsider the nature of the procedures based on revised risk assessments for certain types of transactions, balance sheet accounts or disclosures and related financial preparation assertions. reporting (see also paragraphs 67 - 69 of ISA 330).

Procedure examples

From the requirements of the standards it can be seen that at the stage of completion of the audit, analytical procedures play the role of the final check for the presence of material misstatements in the statements or any financial problems. In this regard, it is most expedient at this stage to carry out such analytical procedures as:

• calculation of net assets;
• identifying signs of insolvency.

The calculation of net assets is usually carried out in order to identify whether the audited entity complied with the requirements for the formation of authorized capital established by Federal Law No. 208-FZ of December 26, 1995 "On Joint-Stock Companies" (hereinafter referred to as the JSC Law). These requirements are as follows:

• if at the end of the second and each subsequent financial year, in accordance with the annual balance sheet proposed for approval by the shareholders of the company, or the results of an audit, the value of the net assets of the company turns out to be less than its authorized capital, the company is obliged to declare a reduction in its authorized capital to an amount not exceeding the value net assets (clause 4, article 35 of the JSC Law);
• if at the end of the second and each subsequent financial year, in accordance with the annual balance sheet proposed for approval by the shareholders of the company, or the results of an audit, the value of the net assets of the company turns out to be less than the minimum authorized capital specified in Art. 26 of the JSC Law, the company is obliged to make a decision on its liquidation (clause 5, article 35 of the JSC Law);
• the minimum authorized capital of an open company must be at least 1000 times the minimum wage established by federal law on the date of registration of the company, and a closed company - at least 100 times the amount of the minimum wage established by federal law on the date of state registration of the company (Article 26 of the Law on JSC ).

Obviously, non-compliance by the audited entity with these requirements can serve both as a basis for doubts about the continuity of activities, and as a reason for the liquidation of the organization. Thus, the task of the auditor is to determine the degree of compliance by the audited entity with these requirements and, if necessary, take into account the facts identified when forming the audit report.

The algorithm for calculating net assets is defined in the Procedure for assessing the value of net assets of joint-stock companies (approved by the joint Order of the Ministry of Finance of Russia and the Federal Securities Commission of Russia of January 29, 2003 N 10n / 03-6 / pz) and consists in determining net assets as the difference between assets and liabilities to the calculation.

Assets accepted for calculation consist of:

• from non-current assets reflected in the first section of the balance sheet (intangible assets, fixed assets, construction in progress, profitable investments in tangible assets, long-term financial investments, other non-current assets);
• current assets reflected in the second section of the balance sheet (stocks, value added tax on acquired valuables, accounts receivable, short-term financial investments, cash, other current assets) with the exception of:
• value in the amount of actual costs for the repurchase of own shares repurchased by the joint-stock company from shareholders for their subsequent resale or cancellation,
• debts of participants (founders) on contributions to the authorized capital.

Liabilities included in the calculation include:

• long-term liabilities on loans and credits and other long-term liabilities;
• short-term liabilities on loans and credits;
• accounts payable;
• debts to participants (founders) for payment of income;
• reserves for future expenses;
• other short-term liabilities.

Identification of signs of insolvency includes, firstly, an analysis of the conditions that contribute to the insolvency of the audited entity due to the inability to satisfy the requirements of creditors or fulfill the obligation to pay mandatory payments, and, secondly, the application of financial analysis and the calculation of coefficients for the purpose of identifying signs of insolvency .

In accordance with paragraph 2. Art. 3 of the Federal Law of October 26, 2002 N 127-FZ "On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)" a legal entity is considered unable to satisfy the claims of creditors for monetary obligations and (or) fulfill the obligation to make mandatory payments, if the corresponding obligations and (or) obligation are not executed by him within three months from the date when they should have been executed.

However, in relation to natural monopolies operating in the fuel and energy complex, the conditions for the onset of insolvency are regulated by Art. 2 of the Federal Law of June 24, 1999 N 122-FZ "On the Peculiarities of Insolvency (Bankruptcy) of Natural Monopoly Entities of the Fuel and Energy Complex". The debtor organization is considered unable to satisfy the claims of creditors for monetary obligations and (or) fulfill the obligation to make mandatory payments, if the relevant obligations and (or) obligation are not fulfilled by the debtor within six months from the date of their fulfillment and the amount of accounts payable exceeds the book value the debtor's property, including the right to claim.

Thus, the insolvency of the organization occurs in case of inability to satisfy the claims of creditors for monetary obligations and (or) fulfill the obligation to make mandatory payments within the period specified in the legislation.

Accordingly, the auditor needs to analyze the circumstances involved in evaluating the organization's ability to meet its existing requirements and responsibilities. As a rule, as part of such an analysis, the auditor compares the cash requirements and obligations of the audited entity, as well as the timing of payment on them, with the possible income of the audited entity and the timing of their receipt.

Issues related to the use of financial analysis and the calculation of coefficients for the purpose of identifying signs of insolvency are considered in a number of regulatory documents related to identifying the deliberate and fictitious nature of the bankruptcy of an organization.

The criteria for a significant deterioration in financial indicators characterizing the solvency of an organization are formulated in the Provisional Rules for checking by an arbitration manager for signs of fictitious and deliberate bankruptcy (approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 27, 2004 N 855).

The criterion of significant deterioration in the analysis of signs of intentional bankruptcy is defined as such a decrease in the values ​​of two or more solvency ratios for any quarterly period, at which the rate of their decline exceeds the average rate of decline in the values ​​of these indicators in the study period. Such a period is understood as a total period consisting of at least two years preceding the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings, as well as including the period of bankruptcy proceedings.

The analysis of the values ​​and dynamics of the coefficients characterizing solvency and calculated for the period under study is carried out in terms of determining the periods within the entire period under study, during which there was a significant deterioration in two or more coefficients. Methods for calculating the coefficients must comply with the Rules for conducting a financial analysis by an arbitration manager, approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of June 25, 2003 N 367.

Appendix N 1 to these Rules defines the procedure for calculating the coefficients (indicators) characterizing the solvency of the debtor, which include:

• absolute liquidity ratio;
• current liquidity ratio;
• the indicator of the security of the debtor's obligations with its assets;
• an indicator of the degree of solvency for current obligations.

In the course of the analysis of the signs of fictitious bankruptcy, the dynamics of all solvency indicators calculated for the study period is considered in terms of determining whether the debtor has the ability to fully satisfy the requirements of creditors for monetary obligations and (or) to pay mandatory payments without significant complications or termination of economic activity.

If the analysis of the values ​​and dynamics of the relevant coefficients characterizing the debtor's solvency indicates that he is unable to pay off his obligations, it is concluded that there are no signs of a fictitious bankruptcy of the debtor.

Thus, the auditor can use the criteria proposed in the Provisional Rules in relation to the values ​​of solvency ratios to determine the prospects for ensuring the solvency of the entity being audited. As the study period, it is proposed to consider a period of time of at least two years in relation to the reporting date, i.e. if, for example, the financial statements for 2006 are being audited, then the coefficients should be determined quarterly for the financial statements for 2005 and 2006, respectively.

In conclusion, we note that the new ISAs establish requirements for the use of analytical procedures that provide the auditor with greater opportunities for their application during substantive audits, which, other things being equal, contributes to the use of more cost-effective audit technologies.

E.L. Skvirskaya

Director

Department of Audit Methodology

Under analytical procedures refers to the evaluation of financial information by analyzing the likely relationships between financial and non-financial data. In addition, the analytical procedures in the audit cover the study of identified fluctuations or relationships (correlations) that contradict other relevant information or significantly diverge from the expected values ​​1 .

Analytical procedures are one of the main ways to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence. As required by ISA 520 Analytical Procedures, the auditor is required to apply them throughout the audit engagement, from the planning stage.

In the process of analytical procedures, the financial information of the audited entity is compared:

• with comparable information from previous periods;
• expected results of the subject's activities;
• analytical industry information.

In addition, the auditor should examine the ratios (relationships):

• between elements of financial information that are expected to match a predictive model based on the entity's performance;
• between financial and non-financial information (for example, the ratio of labor costs to the number of employees).

For the implementation of analytical procedures, it is allowed to use various methods from simple comparisons to complex analysis using complex statistical techniques. The choice of certain methods and the degree of application is the area of ​​professional judgment of the auditor.

When developing and performing substantive analytical procedures for an audit engagement, or in combination with detailed tests in accordance with ISA 330, the auditor should:

• determine the suitability of substantive analytical procedures for auditing specific assertions, taking into account the assessed risks of material misstatement and the detailed tests, if any, applied to those assertions;
• assess the reliability of the data on which the auditor's expectations are based regarding the amounts or ratios reflected in the accounting (financial) statements, taking into account the source, comparability, nature and significance of the information available, as well as the means of monitoring their preparation;
• formulate expectations in relation to the above amounts and ratios and assess whether these expectations are sufficiently accurate to identify misstatements that, by themselves or in combination with other misstatements, may cause material misstatements in the accounting (financial) statements;
• to determine the size of any discrepancy between the amounts reflected in the statements and the expected values, which is acceptable without additional research.

Analytical substantive procedures are generally applicable to many transactions whose dynamics are predictable. The application of analytical procedures is based on the assumption that the relationship between different data exists and continues to exist insofar as there is no evidence to the contrary. However, the suitability of an analytical procedure depends on the auditor's assessment of its effectiveness in detecting misstatements. However, it should be remembered that different analytical procedures provide different levels of reliability.

In determining the reliability of data for the purposes of developing substantive analytical procedures, the auditor should consider:

• on the source of available information;
• the comparability of this information;
• its nature and relevance;
• means of control over the preparation of information, which should ensure its completeness, accuracy and correctness.

When evaluating the reliability of the degree of accuracy of expectations to identify misstatements, the auditor should determine:

• the accuracy of predicting the results of analytical procedures on the merits;
• degree of possible disaggregation (disaggregation) of information;
• availability of financial and non-financial information.

The amount of discrepancy established by the auditor between the amounts reflected in the accounting (financial) statements and the expected amounts, which is acceptable without additional research, depends, as a rule, on the materiality of the aspect on which the discrepancy was revealed and its compliance with the desired level of assurance, taking into account the likelihood that the misstatement on its own or when combined with other misstatements, could cause the financial statements to be materially misstated.

At the final stage of the audit, the use of analytical procedures allows you to confirm or refute the conclusions made during the audit of individual segments or elements of the accounting (financial) statements. In addition, they provide an opportunity to identify problem areas that require additional procedures.

If analytical procedures reveal fluctuations or ratios (correlations) that do not correspond to other significant information or discrepancies from expected values ​​by a significant amount, then the auditor should:

• make inquiries to management and obtain appropriate audit evidence to support management's responses;
• perform other audit procedures necessary in the circumstances.

Additional audit procedures are required if management is unable to provide clarifications or if those clarifications, in combination with audit evidence relevant to management's responses, are not considered sufficient.