Engagement Planning and Supervision
Planning and supervision questions test sequence and documentation: what must be settled before fieldwork starts, what the work program contains, and what a supervisor must review and approve.
Planning
- Standard 2200: each engagement needs a plan covering objectives, scope, timing, and resource allocation, based on a documented risk assessment of the activity.
- Planning inputs include the organization's risk assessment, prior engagement results, management requests, significant changes in the area, and reliance on other assurance providers.
- Standard 2210: objectives must be set for the risks, controls, and governance of the area under review; vague aims such as 'review payables' are not objectives.
- Standard 2220: scope defines what is included and excluded - systems, records, people, time period, and locations.
- Standard 2240: the work program documents the procedures needed to achieve objectives; it must be approved before work begins, and changes approved and documented.
- Planning is iterative: information found during fieldwork can require re-scoping, with approval and documentation of the change.
Supervision
- Standard 2340: supervision ensures work is performed as approved, documented, and supports conclusions; it is continuous throughout the engagement, not a final signature.
- Supervisors assign work to people with the right skills, review workpapers, resolve differences, and coach staff.
Worked example
An engagement is planned as 'assess the efficiency of the accounts payable function.' The scope is defined, but no criteria exist for efficiency and management has not agreed on any. The plan fails Standards 2210 and 2220: without criteria there is no basis to conclude. Before fieldwork, the CAE should narrow the objective - for example, timely processing measured against agreed cycle-time targets - and obtain management's agreement on criteria, then build the work program around them.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing the work program before assessing risk, or before objectives are set.
- Changing procedures during fieldwork without documenting or approving the change.
- Assuming supervision is only the pre-issue review of the report.
- Treating an engagement objective as a list of procedures.