2019 AICPA released Q's; Materiality question

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  • #2747448
    onion
    Participant

    Q. An auditor has set the materiality level for the financial statements as a whole at $125,000. Which of the following misstatements would the auditor most likely consider material?

    a. The client did not record $47,000 in trade accounts payable at year end.
    b. The client did not disclose $45,000 of related party transactions in the footnotes.
    c. The client misclassified $42,000 of supplies expense as miscellaneous expense.
    d. The client’s estimate of the allowance for doubtful accounts is $40,000 more than the auditor’s estimate.

    The answer is b).
    Why is that? I don’t get it. And there’s no explanation on the AICPA released questions deck or on the Internet.

    AUD - 79
    BEC - 89
    FAR - 75
    REG - 87
    Passed 4/4 -2020
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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  • #2747484
    Nbmorty
    Participant

    The 125k materiality threshold doesn't really matter here, since all the answers below 125k, what matters is the related party transactions the enitity must disclose them even if they are trivial, coz these are like off balance sheet transactions, or sales to subsidiaries (double counts).

    ( we found a DOG in a remote area) is a nice mnemonic from far:
    1 D : debt of others guaranteed
    2 O : obligations with banks l/cs
    3 G: guarantees to repurchase assets or recevivables
    These must be disclosed even if they are remote not just probable or reasonably possible..
    On the other hand the rest of the options is really self correcting (the entity will get caught eventually) assuming of course post b/s inquires and subsequent year audit..

    When A) the suppliers would demand payment and they would pay so it would appear on the CF statement even without a payable.

    C) well its an expense so the bottom line would still be the same, although if by miscellaneous they meant non operating the operating income would be overstated but the net is the same.

    D) the allowance (although will understate current net income) eventually would overstate the next period income coz the 40k would be received, and no effect on accounts receivable.
    And next year with overstated allowance they would not be able to record more so little to no bad debt exp. Would be recorded.

    They simply shifted the income to next year ( assuming they wrote off the a/r then recovered them) happens all the time (coz they already achieved the target so all bonuses are earned;)
    Better have the 40k as a head start next year.

    Had any one of these 3 above 125k an except for opinion must be rendered, if the management won't correct it of course

    #2748627
    onion
    Participant

    OMG Thank you so much! I get it now. You literally made my day!

    AUD - 79
    BEC - 89
    FAR - 75
    REG - 87
    Passed 4/4 -2020
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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