AU case studies
AU · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The AU certification exam is a vendor-neutral label for a professional credential whose exact scope, sponsor, and content outline are not confirmed in the material available here. What can be said with confidence is what a credential of this type is for: it exists to give an employer, a client, or a procurement team an independent signal that a practitioner can apply a body of knowledge under time pressure rather than merely describe it. The AU case studies are 5 cases and about 4,120 words.
1The covenant request that arrived without a scope
A two-partner advisory firm holds a fixed-fee engagement letter with a 40-employee manufacturer: monthly management reporting at 6,500 per month, with scope limited to the 'board reporting pack'. In month three the client's CFO emails asking for help with a bank covenant submission due in nine days.
813 words, about 4 min2Payroll files on a personal email account
A five-person bookkeeping practice. An employee resigns and, on their last day, the principal discovers the employee emailed three client payroll files to a personal webmail address, saying they wanted 'to finish the work from home'.
845 words, about 4 min3Two long-standing clients on opposite sides of the same advice
A regional business advisory firm has prepared the accounts of Client B, a wholesale food supplier, for nine years. It also knows B's gross margins in detail from that work.
816 words, about 4 min4Sign-off at 5pm Friday
A consultant has prepared a feasibility report that a client will lodge with a government department on Monday as part of a grant application worth $2.4 million. The report's central case assumes revenue growth of 18% per annum for five years.
797 words, about 4 min5Three invoices from a supplier that shouldn't exist
While reconciling accounts payable at a 60-person firm, a team leader notices three invoices from a vendor that is not on the approved supplier list. Each is for $15,600, approved by the same colleague, and spaced about three weeks apart.
849 words, about 4 min