Audit Staff Essentials + Yellow Book training

Audit concepts and techniques you can use throughout your career

As you take on new audit roles and responsibilities, you'll want to develop a strong conceptual groundwork for all future audit learning.

You'll gain the skills and knowledge needed to perform duties commonly assigned to first-year audit staff.

Scaffolded learning to grow your skills

Level 1 covers the audit from the firm's perspective. You'll learn the core concepts and the dynamics of in-firm and client relationships, in courses that include:

• What Is an Audit?
• Nuts and Bolts: Preparation, Compilation, and Review Engagements
• Introduction to Professional Skepticism
• Deepen Professional Skepticism
• Understanding the Audit Process
• Audit Evidence
• New Auditor's Role on the Engagement Team
• Key Character Traits and Interpersonal Skills for Auditors
• Working Papers and Working Paper Documentation in a Financial Statement Audit
• Introduction to the Audit Risk Model

When taken together with Level 2 - New Staff: Practical Application, this level will help you become a successful auditor and firm member right from the start!

About Audit Staff Essentials − Your audit learning journey

From start to finish, Audit Staff Essentials (ASE) provides the training roadmap and support you need along your career journey. Designed to help you master your current position and excel in each phase of your career, this self-study series offers four levels that cover hands-on technical skills, conceptual expertise, and soft skill training.

Regularly refreshed, this series is perfect for individual staff members or as a comprehensive group training program for firms.

Get ready to position yourself or your staff members to become successful auditors and essential firm members. Levels include:

• Level 1 – New Staff: Core Concepts
• Level 2 - New Staff: Practical Application
• Level 3 – Experienced Staff/New In-Charge
• Level 4 – Experienced In-Charge/Senior

Who Will Benefit

• Recently onboarded staff
• First-year staff
• Firms that want consistent training and level setting

Key Topics

• Audit basics
• Audit risk model
• Professional skepticism
• Key communication skills
• Working papers and documentation
• Professional standards and behavior
• New auditor's role in an engagement

Learning Outcomes

• Recognize the audit's purpose, phases, and procedures performed during each phase of an audit.
• Distinguish among the performance requirements of preparation, compilation, and review engagements.
• Identify key concepts and techniques of interpersonal behavior and communication.
• Recall the importance of professional skepticism and identify when and how to use professional judgment and skepticism in the audit.
• Recall the basics of the audit risk model, including assertions.
• Recognize the different qualities of audit evidence and the techniques used to obtain evidence in order to form an opinion on the financial statements and related disclosures.
• Identify the purpose and importance of audit documentation and the fundamental principles and their application.

Complying with relevant standards

Understanding the concepts and standards of generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS) is an important aspect of performing Yellow Book audits.

By examining everything from GAGAS’s foundation and principles to professional competence and continuing professional education, you’ll increase your knowledge of requirements and standards.

You’ll cover various topics, including:

• Quality control and peer review
• Reporting standards for performance audits
• Ethics, independence and professional judgment
• Professional competence and continuing professional education
• Standards for financial audits, attestation engagements, reviews of financial statements and performance audits

Staying current with the most recent requirements

You’ll explore Yellow Book requirements and guidance based on Government Auditing Standards, 2024 Revision, as well as other technical updates.

The 2025 revision offers guidance related to:

• Shifting from a quality control to a quality management approach
• Risk-based process for quality management
• Engagement quality reviews of GAGAS engagements
• Key audit matters for financial audits

Implementing your new knowledge

Review questions and practice exercises help reinforce your learning and enhance your comprehension of the material.

Who Will Benefit

• Government auditors
• Public accountants

Key Topics

• Foundation and principles of generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS)
• Yellow Book compliance requirements
• Ethics, independence and professional judgment
• Competence and continuing professional education
• Quality control and peer review
• Standards for financial audits, attestation engagements and reviews of financial statements
• Fieldwork and reporting standards for performance audits

Learning Outcomes

• Recognize the types of auditors and audit organizations that may employ GAGAS to conduct their work.
• Identify and apply the requirements contained in Government Auditing Standards (generally accepted government auditing standards, GAGAS, or the Yellow Book).
• Recognize the fundamental ethical principles and the role of professional judgment in the government environment.
• Recognize requirements relating to competence and continuing professional education.
• Identify additional GAGAS requirements for conducting and reporting on financial audits.
• Identify the three types of attestation engagements found in generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS or the Yellow Book) and the additional GAGAS requirements beyond those of the AICPA for attestation engagements.
• Recall the overall approach for auditors to apply in planning and performing an audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence that provides a reasonable basis for findings and conclusions based on the audit objectives.