Singapore University of Social Sciences

ACC406 Topics in Assurance and Attestation deals with current issues that the profession is facing, as well as developments in fundamental audit principles and practices. The course begins by covering two increasingly important new areas in which auditing is required to contribute to the business environment today – money laundering and social and environmental auditing. It then moves on to introduce IT innovations that are changing the way in which audits are performed, through audit analytics and the pending introduction of blockchain technology in financial reporting. The course concludes by connecting students' knowledge and experience of audit practice to investigate two fundamental issues: (1) the construct of audit quality, its relationship with financial reporting quality, the factors that affect its demand and supply and the current professional framework for audit quality; and (2) the importance of professional judgement, the biases to which it is subject to, and how it can be developed and strengthened.