| Course | ACC 645 Advanced Auditing |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 10 |
| Paper type | graduate final project evaluating audit quality on an engagement |
| Length | About 1,010 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Southern New Hampshire University |
| Program | MS Accounting |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for ACC 645 Module 10
Engagement Quality Review: Fiscal 2025 Integrated Audit
[Student Name]
Southern New Hampshire University
ACC 645: Advanced Auditing
Final Project
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.
Engagement Quality Review: Fiscal 2025 Integrated Audit
Purpose and Approach
This review evaluates the quality of the firm's fiscal 2025 integrated audit of the company, as the firm's internal inspection program does for selected engagements each year. Audit quality is treated as a continuum shaped by inputs, process and outputs (Francis, 2011), and the review asks whether the engagement was likely to detect and report material misstatements. Findings are written as condition, criteria, cause and effect.
Audit Quality Indicators
Engagement indicators
| Indicator | 2025 | Firm benchmark for similar engagements |
|---|---|---|
| Total hours | 7,900 | 7,000 to 8,500 |
| Partner share of hours | 6 percent | At least 5 percent |
| Specialist hours, valuation, IT and benefit plans | 1,150 | Not set |
| Hours before year end | 62 percent | At least 55 percent |
| Staff turnover during the engagement | 1 of 11 | Below 20 percent |
| Engagement quality review completed before release | Yes | Required |
The indicators are within or better than the firm's benchmarks. Knechel et al. (2013) caution that inputs such as hours are only partial proxies for quality, so the review also examined the work itself.
What Went Well
Three areas were strong. The evaluation of the SOC 1 report, including the access exception and the bridge letter, was thorough and well documented. Supervision of the Toronto firm met the amended standards: written instructions, three calls, an on-site review in January and copies of key working papers. And the response to the hotline allegation followed the right sequence: prompt communication under Section 10A, evaluation of the committee's investigation and objective procedures using signature metadata across all regions.
Finding One: Fraud Found by a Whistleblower
Condition: the backdating of 23 contracts was revealed by a hotline tip, not by audit procedures. Criteria: AS 2401 requires procedures responsive to the fraud risk in revenue, including cutoff. Cause: third-quarter revenue testing sampled contracts across the quarter at random, so quarter-end clustering was underrepresented, and contract dates were tested against the contract document rather than independent evidence such as signature records. Effect: a fraud that affected a key metric went undetected by the audit for about three weeks. DeFond and Zhang (2014) note that much of what determines detection lies in procedure design rather than effort, which matches this case.
Finding Two: Late Deposits Identified Late
Condition: the 401(k) late deferral deposits from June were identified in January. Criteria: SAS 136 requires assessing risks of noncompliance with plan provisions, and a known payroll migration was a risk factor. Cause: the plan audit team did not receive the financial statement team's knowledge of the June migration. Effect: corrective action and lost earnings were delayed by about six months. Participants' accounts were short the late deferrals' earnings for that time, and the company's fiduciaries carried a compliance exposure they did not know about. A single conversation at planning between the two teams, both working for the same sponsor, would likely have surfaced the risk in September.
Finding Three: A CAM With Stock Wording
Condition: the first draft of the commission amortization CAM described procedures in terms that could apply to any company. Criteria: AS 3101 requires a description of how the matter was addressed in the audit. Cause: the draft began from a firm template rather than the work papers. Effect: the CAM was revised before release, but only after the engagement quality reviewer raised it.
Independence and Ethics on the Engagement
The review tested independence for the engagement team, the Toronto firm and the separate plan audit team. All confirmations were on file, the audit committee preapproved the SOC and tax work before it began, and no team member held company shares. One near miss was found: a senior associate's spouse joined the company's HR department in September. The associate reported it promptly, as firm policy requires, and was moved off the engagement within a week. The review regards this as the system working rather than a finding, but notes that the reassignment should have been documented in the independence file at the time rather than in January.
The Firm's Quality System
Under the PCAOB's quality control framework, engagement findings feed the firm's own monitoring. Two of the three findings point to firm-level design rather than individual error. The random revenue sampling approach comes from the firm's audit methodology for subscription businesses, so the remedy must change the methodology, not only this engagement. The disconnect between plan audit and financial statement teams reflects how the firm organizes its benefit plan practice as a separate group with its own scheduling. The CAM template issue was already identified at two other engagements, which suggests the template itself encourages generic wording. The review recommends that the quality control partner assess all three at the firm level before next year's busy season.
Measuring Improvement
Each remedy has a measure. Stratified quarter-end testing will be checked on all subscription-business audits in next year's inspection sample. Joint planning between plan and sponsor teams will be tracked by the meeting record in each file. CAM drafts will be reviewed by the quality reviewer for specificity using a short checklist. The engagement partner will report progress to the firm's audit quality committee in September.
Remedies
First, quarter-end revenue testing will stratify contracts by signature date and test the last ten days separately. Second, contract dates will be tested against independent evidence, such as signature metadata, on all audits of companies with subscription sales. Third, plan audit and financial statement teams for the same sponsor will hold a joint planning meeting. Fourth, CAM drafting will start from the working paper summary, with templates used only for format. Fifth, the engagement will track these changes as quality objectives in its 2026 plan, measured by the inspection program next year. None of the remedies adds many hours; most change where existing hours are spent, which is why they are realistic for a team already within its budget.
Conclusion
The engagement was performed with appropriate resources, sound supervision and good judgment on the year's unusual events, and the opinions issued were supported. Its main weakness was procedure design in revenue cutoff, which the remedies address at their cause.
References
DeFond, M., & Zhang, J. (2014). A review of archival auditing research. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 58(2-3), 275-326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2014.09.002
Francis, J. R. (2011). A framework for understanding and researching audit quality. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 30(2), 125-152. https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-50006
Knechel, W. R., Krishnan, G. V., Pevzner, M., Shefchik, L. B., & Velury, U. K. (2013). Audit quality: Insights from the academic literature. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 32(Supplement 1), 385-421. https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-50350
What the ACC 645 Module 10 instructions ask for
The ACC 645 final project usually asks you to evaluate the audit and assurance work on the case, often as a quality review, a reflection on the engagement or a report to the firm's leadership. Plan to define audit quality, select indicators to measure it, assess what was done well and what fell short across the milestones, analyze root causes of shortfalls and recommend remedies. Integrate feedback from the milestones rather than repeating them. Cite research on audit quality and connect findings to specific standards. Write for a reader inside the firm, such as the quality control partner, who wants candid conclusions supported by evidence and remedies that can be measured next year.
How this ACC 645 Module 10 final project example is built
The review defines audit quality as the likelihood that the audit detects and reports material misstatements and measures it with indicators: 7,900 hours, 6 percent by the partner, specialists on valuation, IT and the benefit plan, and 62 percent of hours before year end. It credits the SOC report evaluation, the supervision of the Toronto firm and the response to the hotline allegation. It reports three findings: the backdating was found by a whistleblower, not by audit procedures; the 401(k) late deposits were identified in January rather than in planning; and one CAM used stock procedure wording. Root causes include sampling that missed quarter-end clustering. Five remedies follow, each tied to a cause, with a closing judgment on the engagement as a whole.
Where the ACC 645 Module 10 rubric puts the points
Rubrics for the ACC 645 final project typically score the definition and measurement of audit quality, the evaluation of the engagement across topics, the identification of findings, root cause analysis, the quality of recommendations, integration of milestone feedback, use of research and professional writing. Top submissions are candid about shortfalls, distinguish findings from their causes, use indicators rather than impressions and propose remedies that address causes. Graders also reward recognizing what the engagement did well and measuring indicators against a benchmark. Common deductions include praising the engagement without evidence, listing problems without causes, remedies that do not follow from causes and ignoring milestone feedback.
ACC 645 Module 10 help: the mistakes that cost points
Final reviews most often lose points by mistaking symptoms for causes, such as blaming a missed issue on time pressure without asking why the procedure was designed the way it was. A second weak spot is remedies that are generic, such as more training, without saying what, for whom and how success would be measured. If your guidelines ask for a reflection rather than an inspection, keep the same structure of what happened, why and what to change. Write each finding as condition, criteria, cause and effect, the format inspectors use; it forces the causal analysis graders look for. Then match each remedy to one cause.
Get ACC 645 Module 10 written to your instructions
Send the ACC 645 final project guidelines and the instructor notes on your milestones. The project will integrate the milestones into an evaluation of the engagement, with indicators, findings, root causes and practical remedies, supported by research. Turnaround is two days, and the first is on us. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Southern New Hampshire University document.
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ACC 645 Module 10 questions, answered
Where can I find a free ACC 645 Module 10 Final Project sample?
This page includes a full ACC 645 final project quality review of an integrated audit engagement.
What is audit quality?
Commonly, the likelihood that the auditor detects and reports material misstatements; frameworks also consider inputs, process, outputs and context.
What are audit quality indicators?
Measures such as staff experience and hours, partner involvement, use of specialists, timing of work, inspection results and restatements that help assess audit quality.
What is a root cause analysis in auditing?
An analysis of why a deficiency occurred, looking beyond the immediate error to factors such as procedure design, supervision, training, workload or culture, so remedies address the cause.
How should an audit quality finding be written?
As condition, what happened; criteria, what the standard required; cause, why it happened; and effect, what risk resulted, followed by a recommended remedy.